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THE 



HARMONY 



OF THE 



LAW AND THE GOSPEL 



WITH REGARD TO THE 



DOCTRINE OF A FUTURE STATE. 




/ 

BY THOMAS WILLIAM LANCASTER, M.A. 

VICAR OF BANBURY, AND FORMERLY FELLOW OF QUEEn's COLLEGE, 

OXFORD. 



OvK avTiSiaTao-(76Tat 0eov to evocyyeXiov rtp rov vojaov Seu' ovf oirore- 
fiT^XaOeTO Tim Mava-rj hkra^aro. Origenes contra Celsum, VII. 25. 



OXFORD, 

PRINTED AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS FOR J. PARKER 3 

AND FOR MESSRS. RIVINoi'ON, LONDON. 

MDCCCXXV. 



f^c 



PREFACE, 



1 HAT future rewards and punishments do 
not form the subject of direct and explicit 
revelation in the books of Moses, is a posi- 
tion which, in the following treatise, I have 
regarded as incapable of reasonable dispute. 
To provide and vindicate, on scriptural 
grounds, the only just explanation of the 
fact thus stated, was the primary design of 
the writer. In the prosecution of this object, 
I have used my endeavours to prove, agree- 
ably to my own conviction, that a deviation, 
as to this particular, from the present struc- 
ture of the Mosaic writings, would have in- 
volved, an inconsistency with the purposes 
which were severally contemplated in the 
promulgation both of the Law and of the 
Gospel ; a contradiction of the principles on 
which the Divine Author of revelation has 
framed his provisions for the restoration of 
his fallen creatures ; and a tendency to coun- 
teract, by its natural influence on the human 
mind, the operation of that plan by which 
our redemption has been accomplished. 

The fate of controverted subjects has com- 
a 2 



vi PREFACE. 

out to view those arguments which, being 
framed on principles established in the course 
of the previous examination, w^ere suitable to 
be employed as positive evidence in support 
of revealed religion. 

It is natural that frequent reference should 
occur, in a disquisition of this nature, to the 
celebrated work of bishop Warburton. In 
relation to this subject, there is a circum- 
stance which I deem too important to be 
passed over without remark. 

It is well known that the celebrated trea- 
tise on the Divine Legation of Moses was 
never completed according to the plan of its 
very learned and distinguished writer. Among 
the parts which are wanting to fill up the au- 
thor's design, is one, in which he had intend- 
ed to treat of the reasons why a future state 
w^as not revealed in the Law of Moses. This 
will appear from a passage, in which, after 
stating the objection of an adversary thus, 
" If a future state was not improper, much 
" more if it was of use, under an extraordi- 
" nary dispensation, how came Moses not to 
"give it?" he subjoins, "I reply, for great 
" and wise ends of Providence vastly coun- 
" tervailing the use of that doctrine, which, 
" in the last volume of this work, will be ex- 
" plained at large \" 

•» I)iv. \jvfr. book V. Appendix, vol. v. p. 215. cd. 181 J. 



PREFACE. vii 

Had the purpose of the great writer, as 
thus stated, been carried into effect, there 
cannot be a doubt that he would have laid 
the greatest stress on the principle which I 
have myself insisted upon as chiefly avail- 
able towards the solution of the question. 
For, in the posthumous fragment which had 
been intended to form a part of the ninth 
book, we find the following hint respecting 
the line of argument which he had purposed 
to follow. 

" And here it will be proper to observe, 
" that had Jesus been only a messenger sent 
" from heaven, with no other purpose than to 
" propagate a system of revealed morals, or to 
" republish the law of nature, we can see no 
" reason why life and immortality might not 
" have been promulged by Moses for the 
" sanction of the Law, as well as by Jesus 
" Christ, who hath made it the peculiar sanc- 
" tion of the Gospel : and so both doctrines, 
" that of the true God, and of eternal life, 
" have come from heaven together. The So- 
" cinians, and they who deny a redemption 
" by the atonement of a real sacrifice on the 
" cross, would do well to reconsider this mat- 
" ter. But more of it in a fitter place*"." 

But the passage in which his views on this 

b Book ix. chap. 1. vol. vi. pp. 265, 266. 
a 4 



viii PREFACE. 

subject are most fully disclosed, is the follow- 
ing. 

" Revelation teacheth that mankind lost 
" the free gift of immortal life by the trans- 
" gression of Adam ; and, from thence, became 
" mortal, and their existence confined to this 
" life. Revelation likewise teacheth that the 
" mean which Divine Wisdom thought fit to 
" employ in restoring man from death to his 
" first state of immortality, was the sacrifice of 
" Christ on the cross. Hence it appears to be 
" a thing impossible, that any messenger from 
" God, any agent or instrument made use of 
" for conducting this grand dispensation to- 
" wards its completion, could (were it in his 
" choice or in his oj^ce to promulgate the doc- 
" trine of a future state) speak of any other 
" but that purchased by Christ, and promul- 
" ged and proclaimed in the Gospel, since in 
" fact, on the principles of revelation, there is 
" no other ; and to inculcate another, would 
" be impeaching the veracity of God, and the 
" eternal stability of his councils." 

" To conclude, There is one thing which 
" plainly evinceth, that if the Jews had the 
" knowledge or belief of a future state of re- 
" ward and ])unishment, they must have had 
" the knowledge of the redemption of man 
" by tlie deatli and suffering of Jesus Christ, 
" hkewise. And it is this, That all the sa- 



PREFACE. ix 

" crifices in the Jewish ritual regarded only 
" temporal things. A very competent judge 
" in these matters assures us, — Universa Ju- 
" daeorum simul congesta sacrificia ad asse- 
" quenda hujus vitas commoda omnia facta 
" erant^ The consequence is this, That if 
" the Jewish religion taught its followers a 
" future state of rewards and punishments, it 
" either afforded them no means of attaining 
" future happiness, or it instructed them in 
" the doctrine of the Redemption. To say 
" the first, contradicts the nature of all reli- 
" gion ; to say the latter, makes the Jewish 
" useless, and the Christian false, as contra- 
" dieting its repeated declarations, that life 
" and immortality, or the doctrine of the Re- 
" demption, was brought to light through the 
" GospeP." 

It is far from my intention to express an 
unqualified concurrence of judgment in rela- 
tion to the contents of the foregoing cita- 
tipns. On the contrary, the reasoning pur- 
sued in the last of them appears to me to la- 
bour under a considerable fallacy. For it is 
here contended, that the doctrine of a future 
state must have been unknown to the Israel- 
ites, because the doctrine of redemption was : 
a fact which we conceive to be too hastily as- 
sumed. That the mode of our redemption by 

«^ " Outram de ^acr. p. 305." 

d Div. Leg. b. v. §. 6\ vol. v. pp. 195, 196. 



X PREFACE. 

the sacrifice of the Son of God was unknown 
to them, may reasonably be admitted : but it 
cannot with equal reason be supposed, that 
they were ignorant of the fact, that God had 
decreed to provide a redemption, which was 
to take effect in the fulness of time. For 
such ignorance was inconsistent with the dis- 
covery of the Mosaic record respecting the 
promise of a future triumph over the seducer 
of man's innocence. It was equally incon- 
sistent with the expectation they were taught 
to cherish, of a blessing on the whole race of 
mankind to arise from the seed of Abraham : 
for how could they, who now lay under the 
malediction of death, be viewed as the sub- 
jects of a Divine blessing, unless there were 
expected a reversal, or at least a mitigation, 
of the previous sentence ? Our own views 
have therefore led us to maintain, that the 
doctrine of Redemption was known to the 
ancient church of Israel ; and that the doc- 
trine of a future life would be a natural ard 
necessary deduction from it. 

With regard to another position contained 
in the last of the foregoing extracts, which 
relates to the Jewish sacrifices, I have so fully 
explained my views in the course of my work, 
tliat a brief remark will suffice for the present 
])urposc. It is said, " That all the sacrifices 
" ill the Jewish ritual regarded only tempo- 
" ral things." This is true of the Levitical 



PREFACE. xi 

sacrifices, considered as such in their peculiar 
and distinctive character. But it is to be re- 
membered, that this peculiar and distinctive 
character of sacrifice, as it occurs in the Mo- 
saic ritual, was superadded to, but not de- 
structive of, that character which belonged to 
it as an ordinance generally observed among 
mankind antecedently to the promulgation 
of the Law. When remodelled in the Mo- 
saic Law, it would still retain that anterior 
and more prevailing character, in which we 
regard it as a general means of propitiating 
the Deity, without any restricted application 
to the blessings of the present life. While 
we conceive this to be the true statement of 
the case, we also conceive that it involves in 
it no dissonance from the language of the 
learned and excellent writer whose authority 
is here alleged by Warburton : since the de- 
sign of that writer, in his work upon sacrifice, 
was limited to an examination of the Leviti- 
cal sacrifices as viewed in relation to the sa- 
crifice of Christ, and did not embrace a re- 
gard to the same ordinance as it prevailed in 
times and countries to which the temporal 
sanction of the Mosaic Law was unknown. 

The purpose of the foregoing citations was 
to shew, that so far as, in relation to the omis- 
sion of the Law, the present writer concurs 
with the sentiments of Warburton, he has 
also the concurrence of that distinguished 



xii PREFACE. 

prelate as to the principle on which the omis- 
sion is chiefly to be explained. Of this con- 
currence he was wholly unconscious when he 
framed his own view of the subject; since 
that view had been formed, and the state- 
ment of it prepared for publication in its 
present form, with no other knowledge of the 
learned writer's opinions, than what had been 
derived from an early edition of the Divine 
Legation, in which none of the above-cited 
passages will be found. 

A coincidence of judgment with a writer 
so highly gifted as to genius and learning, 
may reasonably be allowed to strengthen an 
author's conviction on the subject to which 
it relates. In relation to that same subject, 
the views which I have taken up, derive, as I 
cannot but think, the strongest confirmation 
from another circumstance, which I will now 
submit to the reader's attention. 

The course of argument which I have pur- 
sued in the earlier part of my work, has been 
designed to prove, that a premature employ- 
ment, in the Law of Moses, of the sanction 
derived from a future life, would have been 
hostile to the acknowledgment of our Re- 
deemer and the reception of his doctrines. 
This reasoning I have, by the matter adduced 
in the Supplementary Remarks, been able to 
fortify l)y the evidence of facts. From an 
examination of that evidence it will appear. 



PREFACE. xiii 

that the errors which I have described as so 
many corollaries deducible from the doctrine 
of a future state in the Law, are the very au- 
thentic doctrines entertained by the unbe- 
lieving Jews ; that they are entertained in 
conjunction with a firm belief, that a future 
state was promulgated by Moses as the sanc- 
tion of the Law ; and that they also consti- 
tute the grounds on which that nation refuse 
to acknowledge the authority of the Gospel. 
These doctrines are indeed nothing more 
than so many inferences correctly deduced 
from a false assumption of fact : a case in 
which correctness of reasoning can lead only 
to a wider department from the object pur- 
sued, since it precludes the only chance, which 
fallacy would otherwise have afforded, of blun- 
dering upon truth. It will also be seen from 
the same evidence, that w^hile the written Law 
is insisted upon as declaring the sanction of 
future rew^ards and punishments : the gene- 
ral reasoning in the application of the texts 
which have been adduced from it as decla- 
ratory of that sanction, is such as to shew, 
that those texts are of no avail to the pur- 
pose till they have, if I may so speak, changed 
their sensible qualities in a passage through 
the alembick of cabalistical or rabbinical in- 
terpretation. 

The tenor of the foregoing remarks will 
naturally lead the reader to expect, in the 



xiv PREFACE. 

course of this work, a considerable difference 
of judgment from preceding writers, many of 
them of eminent name, who have pursued 
tlie same objects of inquiry. In the state- 
ment and vindication of these differences, I 
hope 1 shall not be found to have violated 
the moderation of a Christian temper. While 
illustrating also the defects inherent in the 
systems of foregoing writers, I trust it will 
not be thought that I have been insensible 
of the prospect, that many and consider- 
able blemishes will be discovered in my own 
work. But in relation to such blemishes, I 
cannot but derive satisfaction from the fol- 
lowing reflection. If my reasonings be ob- 
jected to, they are at least those which have 
convinced my own mind : if my allegation of 
facts should in any case prove to be erroneous, 
the mistake has not arisen from any wilful 
neglect as to diligence of inquiry or fidelity of 
statement. And, if any thing shall be found 
in my work, which may harbour a tendency 
in the slightest degree injurious to the sacred 
cause of pure religion, I trust that no man 
will rejoice more sincerely than myself in any 
endeavour which may be employed, or any 
event which may operate, to detect the error, 
and obstruct its propagation. 

Jaiu 9A, 1825. 



CONTENTS, 



CHAPTER I. 
i HE subject of inquiry stated - - - P. I 

CHAPTER n. 

Reasons why the doctrine of a future state is not expressly taught 
in the writings of Moses - - - 8 

CHAPTER HI. 

The doctrine of a future state was always entertained by the Is- 
raelites frorp the very earliest period of their history - 23 

CHAPTER IV. 

An inquiry into the sources from which the ancient Israelites may 
have derived their belief in a future state - - 3") 

SECTION I. Inquiry into the origin of the belief in a future 
state, considered as a doctrine belonging to the universal 
religion of mankind - - - 36 

SECTION II. The silence of the Mosaic law would have no 
tendency to eradicate from the mind of the Israelite that 
belief in a future state, which, independently of that law, 
he would have entertained in common with the rest of the 
world - - - - 150 

SECTION III. The writings of Moses were specially adapt- 
ed to countenance the belief in a future state - 1 69 

CHAPTER V. 

View of a particular provision by which the belief in a future 
state was guarded from affording countenance to opinions in- 
consistent with true religion - - - 187 
SECTION I. Origin of sacrifice - - 188 
SECTION II. Meaning of sacrifice - - 219 



xvi CONTENTS. 

SECTION III. The use and importance of sacrifice consi- 
dered as a subordinate and temporary provision belonging 
to the general plan of revealed religion - 232 

CHAPl^ER VL 

Scriptural authorities in support of the doctrine which has been 
maintained in the foregoing chapters - - 247 

CHAPTER VII, 

Other remarkable instances of omission in the Mosaic code, ex- 
plained on the principle which has been applied to the omis- 
sion of the doctrine of a future state - - 301 

CHAPTER Vm. 

The harmony of divine revelation insisted on as an evidence of its 
truth - - - - 319 

CHAPTER IX. 

The want of antiquity and universality in the scheme of revela- 
tion, considered _ _ _ 333 

CHAPTER X. 

The same subject pursued. Conclusion. - - 360 

Supplementary Remarks - - - 39 1 



ERRATA. 

Page 239, line 18. Before *' the old sacrificial system" insert *' the of- 

" ferings of" 
Page 243, line If). For *' that" read *< the" 
Page 269, line 12. For '* incontestibly" read " incontestably" 
Page 270, line !). Before " cannot" insert *' that it" 
Pace 311, line 10. Omit " also" 



CHAPTER I. 

THE SUBJECT OF INQUIRY STATED. 

X HE volume of holy Scripture unfolds to the 
knowledge of mankind a wonderful scheme of re- 
demption, which has been appointed by God as the 
means of their deliverance from the penalties in- 
curred by sin. This scheme is represented to have 
taken its rise immediately after the first transgres- 
sion, and to have received its accomplishment in 
the publication of the Gospel. Its beginning, the 
progressive stages of its advancement, and its com- 
pletion, are discovered to us in many successive re- 
velations, which have been, at different periods ex- 
tending through a long tract of time, communicated 
to the world by men divinely inspired and autho- 
rized. 

Whatever variety may exist as to the time and 
circumstances of these several communications, it 
may reasonably be expected, that they should all 
agree in their reference to one great design of be- 
nevolence to the human race. And this expectation 
will not be disappointed by an examination of the 
holy Scriptures ; provided that such examination be 
conducted with that attention, that candour, and 
that deep humility, which are justly due from a 
creature in contemplating the ways and counsels of 
the all-wise and perfect Governor of the world. 
The reference for which we contend may not, in- 
deed, on a separate consideration of each distinct 

B 



2 The subject of inquiry stated. 

portion of these writings, be always equally mani- 
fest ; but the truth of the principle will be readily 
acknowledged, if we bear in mind, as we ought to 
do, that every revelation of the divine will which is 
therein recorded, however partial and restricted in 
its primary aspect, is to be regarded as having a 
connexion, nearer or more remote, with that com- 
prehensive purpose of mercy to fallen man which 
was to receive its completion in the Gospel. 

Viewing, then, the several communications of di- 
vine truth which compose the body of Scripture, as 
having one common end, and all of them uniting 
ultimately in the same design ; we might, on the 
principles of natural rehgion, be led to suppose, that 
the substance of each revelation would be the same. 
Such an expectation might arise from considering, 
on the one hand, the attributes of God, who is the 
author of revelation ; and on the other, the nature of 
man, for whose benefit the revelation is intended. 

As to the former, natural religion would teach us 
the unchangeableness of the Deity; it would dis- 
pose us to believe in his absolute perfection ; and 
would consequently lead us to regard him, as ex- 
empt from those capricious movements, and that ir- 
regularity of conduct, which result from the frail 
and disordered constitution of human minds. Hence, 
from a contemplation of the divine nature, might 
we frame an inference, that the benevolence of God 
to his rational creatures, and his provisions for their 
welfare, would be at all times perfectly unvaried and 
uniform. 

Then, again, with respect to the nature of man : 
that would occur to our own observation and expe- 



The subject of inquiry stated, 3 

rience, as wearing the same complexion in all ages 
of the world, deriving its happiness from the same 
sources, susceptible of the same incitements to duty, 
endued with the same capacities, subjected to the 
same dangers, and in need of the same consolations. 
Hence it would appear reasonable to conclude, that 
religious truth, in the fullest extent of its discovery, 
would be at all times equally influential on his prac- 
tice and conducive to his welfare. 

On this combined regard to both the dispenser 
and the recipient of divine revelation, we might 
frame an expectation, that every communication 
from God to man, in which the general interests of 
man are concerned, would be the same, as to the mat- 
ter, degree, and extent, of the knowledge conveyed ; 
however such communications might be diversified 
as to the time and manner of their being imparted. 

Such are the expectations which might arise from 
viewing the subject simply in itself, and abstractedly 
from that information which we possess respecting 
the actual proceedings of the Deity. But here we 
meet with a striking example of the incompetence 
of human reason to frame an estimate of the me- 
thods, which, under any given circumstances, would 
be adopted by the Supreme Being, in order to the 
accomplishment of his wise and merciful designs. 
For it is undeniable, that the measures of know- 
ledge afforded by divine inspiration to various ages 
of the world have been very unequal. 

This inequality discovers itself as to many points 
in which the happiness of man is very deeply in- 
terested. At various epochs in the progress of the 
sacred history, the light of divine revelation hath 

B 2 



4 The subject of inquiry stated. 

opened into greater degrees of clearness ; the views 
which it has unfolded to one age, have been far 
more full and distinct than any discoveries which 
had been made to foregoing generations ; till at 
length it burst forth in its greatest splendour in the 
sunshine of the Gospel, laying open a scene of joy, 
consolation, and hope, which before that time had 
either been wrapped in total darkness, or else im- 
perfectly beholden through the medium of type and 
prophecy. 

This observation applies with particular force to 
the doctrine of a future state of reward and punish- 
ment. If man is destined for eternity ; if he shall 
hereafter be judged according to his works ; if the 
present life be a state of probation, on which the 
happiness or misery of a future will depend ; can it 
be disputed that he is deeply concerned in the 
knowledge of these truths? Is it not most highly 
important to him, that he should regulate his con- 
duct with an eye to that retribution which awaits 
him ? that he should be aware of the great interest 
which he has pending, and alive to the awful ne- 
cessity of securing it ? His future and eternal con- 
dition, whether of reward or of punishment, must 
appear to depend in some degree on the previous 
knowledge which he has respecting it. Even if we 
look no further than the present life, still the un- 
speakable value of this doctrine must be manifest ; 
whether we regard the restraint which it imposes 
upon wickedness, the firm support which it yields 
to innocence and virtue, or the consolation it admi- 
nisters under the sufferings and sorrows incident to 
our mortal state. 



The subject of inquiry stated, 5 

Here then arises a question. Why, in those many 
various revelations which are recorded as having 
been imparted in the earlier ages of the world to the 
patriarchs and the chosen people of God, are those 
clear assurances of a future state withheld, which 
are now afforded to ourselves under the Gospel ? 

To offer a few considerations which may possibly 
conduce to the solution of this difficulty, and help 
us to trace the footsteps of divine wisdom in the 
proceeding to which we refer, will be the design of 
the following treatise. Before, however^ we pro- 
ceed further in our inquiry, there are two observa- 
tions which it will be right to premise. 

My first observation is, that nothing is here as- 
sumed respecting the silence of the Mosaic code on 
the subject of a future life, further than the absence 
of all express declaration on that head. Explicit 
declaration is only one out of a great variety of 
modes by which truth may be made known. That a 
future state is not thus directly taught in the Pen- 
tateuch, is all that is at present asserted as the 
groundwork of the argument which is to follow. 
Whether this important doctrine may be gathered 
in the way of inference from the Mosaic writings ; 
whether those writings were designed to favour such 
an inference, and to cherish the hope of a triumph 
over the grave ; these are points which will pro- 
perly offer themselves for discussion in the progress 
of our inquiry. 

Secondly, We shall consider as separate parts of 
one entire dispensation, all those various revelations 
contained in holy Scripture, in which God at sun- 
dry times and in divers manners hath spoken to 

B 3 



6 The subject of Inquiry stated. 

the world, from the fall of our first parents, down 
to the sealing up of the vision and prophecy under 
the Messiah. At the same time, it forms no part 
of the design of this inquiry to take in the whole 
scheme of revealed religion : its object being limited 
to a particular provision of the Mosaic law, for the 
purpose of illustrating the wisdom of that provision 
in its adjustment and adaptation to the general plan 
of which it forms a part. The scheme of man's 
redemption will be contemplated as it is set forth in 
holy writ ; and nothing further is proposed, than to 
prove, from a general view of this mysterious eco- 
nomy, that the specific point selected for considera- 
tion, is perfectly consistent with the design of the 
whole, wisely adapted to promote its success, and 
perfectly agreeable to the divine attributes of good- 
ness and mercy. If any thing further should be 
offered, it will be only incidentally, as occasion may 
happen in the course of our inquiry to suggest re- 
flections, tending to vindicate the ways of Provi- 
dence, to strengthen the obligations of piety and 
gratitude, and to silence the cavils of ignorance and 
presumption. 

This last observation has been deemed important 
for the following reason. While vindicating from 
objection one provision of the scriptural scheme, we 
may have occasion to shew, that a departure from 
that provision Avould have been ill adapted, either 
to the general character of the scheme itself, to the 
established course of Providence, or to the natural 
constitution of human minds : all of which we refer 
to God as their author. Yet if this shall be made 
satisfactorily to appear, it may still be objected : but 



The subject of inquiry stated. 7 

why was this scheme framed as it is ? or, why was 
not the course of events differently ordered ? or, 
why were not the minds of men otherwise consti- 
tuted ? To such objections we profess not to give 
any distinct reply : as indeed they are capable of 
none, but that which dismisses the objector with 
an admonition respecting his ignorance^. 

To reason thus looks as if we would take the go- 
vernment of the world out of God's hands into our 
own. The system of religion which we profess to 
vindicate is, and must be, imperfectly comprehended 
by us. Enough is revealed for all the purposes of 
our happiness ; but much more is unrevealed^. To 
work contradictions cannot be expected even of Om- 
nipotence : yet we doubt not, that the demands of 
human pride and inconsideration, such as we have 
now stated, would appear replete with contradic- 
tions to a mind, capable of embracing all those possi- 
bilities, relations, and consequences, which lie open 
to the contemplation of the Supreme Intelligence. 
It will suffice for us to shew, that the system itself 
is, with regard to the subject of our present con- 
sideration, free from inconsistency and self-contra- 
diction : though, even in this limited point of view, 
we protest against admitting, as a real inconsistency, 
that which may appear such to us, whose mental vi- 
sion, unaided by a light from heaven, can penetrate 
little further than the surface of the objects which 
lie immediately around it. 

» *' Our ignorance, as it is the common, is really a satisfactory, 
" answer to all objections against the justice and goodness of 
" Providence." Butler's Analogy, part i. chap. vii. 

^ See Butler's Analog)^ pt. ii. ch^iv. as also pt. i. ch. vii. 

B 4 



8 Why a future state is not explicitly 



CHAPTER II. 



REASONS WHY THE DOCTRINE OF A FUTURE STATE IS 
NOT EXPRESSLY TAUGHT IN THE WRITINGS OF MOSES. 



Unius PONTiFiciuM ChrJsti est dare animis salutem. 

Arnohius adv. Gen. II. 65. 

In examining a complex piece of mechanism, if 
we would form a right judgment of the structure of 
any of its component parts, it is requisite that we 
should have in view the end and purpose which is to 
be answered by the operation of the whole machine : 
otherwise it will be impossible to frame a just esti- 
mate of the skill with which that component part 
has been framed to the performance of its subordi- 
nate office. 

A mode of inquiry analogous to what has now 
been described, is that which it will be right for us 
to pursue in the consideration of our present sub- 
ject. The whole body of revelation must be viewed 
as one entire dispensation, receiving its full and 
complete developement in the Gospel. Of this 
whole, so much as relates to the Israelites under 
tlie Law is to be regarded as a subordinate part, 
liaving only a relative connexion with the great and 
final purpose. When therefore we inquire. Why was 
the knowledge of a future state afforded to the Is- 
raelites, so slender in comparison with that which 
Christians now enjoy? the measure is to be con- 
templated, not simply as it may have affected the 



revealed in the Pentateuch, 9 

condition of that single people, but as having an 
ulterior reference to that glorious redemption, which 
God had decreed to accomplish in the fulness of 
time for the benefit of all the children of men. In 
other words, we must see whether we can discover, 
in this particular provision, a consistency with the 
final purpose, to which this and all the other subor- 
dinate parts of revealed religion are professedly ac- 
commodated. 

Let us advert, then, to that great fundamental 
principle of pure Christianity, that the atonement 
of Christ is the only warrantable foundation on 
which a human creature can establish his hopes 
respecting a future life. Such being the case, would 
not any explicit declarations respecting a future 
state, or any clear assurances of the felicity which 
in that state is prepared for the faithful : would not 
such declarations and assurances, I say, have been 
premature, if they had been conveyed antecedently 
to the performance of that meritorious sacrifice ; or, 
at least, before a distinct explanation had been fur- 
nished to mankind of the only ground on which 
they could entertain any well founded hopes relat- 
ing to another world? We know, that all expecta- 
tions of the divine favour which stand upon the 
basis of human virtue and obedience, are utterly 
incompatible with the plan of our redemption, and 
that the plea of merit is one on which no flesh will 
be accepted before God. But would not a hope of 
this nature, offensive as it is to God, and utterly 
unwarrantable in itself, have been fondly cherished 
by the pride and ignorance of man, if at any ear- 
lier period he had possessed that distinct infor- 



10 IVJiy a future state is not explicitly 

mation respecting future rewards and punishments 
which the Gospel unfolds ? 

It becomes not us to scrutinize the propriety of 
that appointment, which ordained so late a period 
of the world for an event of the most momentous 
influence on the condition of the human race. It 
was a decree of that unsearchable wisdom, which is 
alone competent to select the most suitable means 
for the accomplishment of its ends, and so to frame 
the plans of divine mercy and benevolence, as to 
give to them the fullest and most extensive effect of 
which, in the nature of things, they are capable. 
Such, however, is the fact : that event to which we 
are indebted for our redemption and recovery, was 
not to take place till many ages after the introduc- 
tion and prevalence of the evil which it was de- 
signed to remedy. The crucifixion of our Re- 
deemer was about four thousand years after the 
transgression of Adam. Of the long intermediate 
space between the introduction of sin and the atone- 
ment for it, but a few centuries had enjoyed any dis- 
tinct and intelligible communications respecting the 
mode in which the restoration of mankind was to 
be accomplished. The prophecy contained in the 
fifty-third, and part of the foregoing, chapters of 
Isaiah, may be considered as the earhest prediction 
of a suffering and dying Messiah, which could have 
been distinctly and generally understood before its 
fulfilment''. Earlier intimations, indeed, we have. 

c " From that prophet, justly called evangelical, who was the 
''first commmioned to lift up the veil that covered the mystery of 
" our redemption, and to draw it forth to open view from beneath 
*' the shade of Jewish ceremonies and types, through which it 



revealed in the Pentateuch, 11 

The Book of Psalms contains many a picture in 
which the humiliation and death of the Son of God 
are circumstantially delineated. We have the sym- 
bolical representations of the Levitical ritual. We 
have also various transactions of an emblematical 
character in the earlier stages of the sacred history. 
These are, each in its kind, clearly illustrative of 
the scheme of mercy which had been progressively 
carried on from the beginning. They are corrobo- 
rative testimonies to the evidence by which Christi- 
anity is supported. But nothing of earlier date 
than the passage referred to, can be justly inter- 
preted as a distinct and perspicuous announcement 
of the mystery of man's redemption through the vi- 
carious sacrifice of the Messiah. The date of this 
prophecy must be fixed within considerably less than 
eight centuries before the death of Christ. 

Thus long did a state of ignorance prevail, not 
only among mankind in general, but even among 
the peculiar family of God, as to the means by 
which the forgiveness and salvation of man were to 
be effected. In this state of things, what would 
have been the natural consequence of conveying in 
the Law of Moses any clearer discoveries respecting 
a future world ? The Israelite who lived under that 
Law, might derive from it, indeed, a general faith in 
the Messiah, together with a persuasion that his ad- 

" had been hitherto but faintly discerned, we have a description 
" of that great propitiatory sacrifice, whereby our salvation has 
" been effected, as plain as it is possible for language to convey 
•' it." Abp. Magee on Atonement and Sacrifice, vol. ii. p. 15. 
Dublin, 1809. The words quoted relate to the prophecy referred 
to in the text. 



12 JVky a future state is not explicitly 

vent would be the occasion of signal benefits to his 
own nation, and even to all mankind. But he could 
not, more particularly in the early ages of that na- 
tion, frame any distinct conceptions respecting the 
peculiar character of that great achievement of di- 
vine wisdom and love, by which the glory of God 
was in after-ages to be revealed to the world ; which 
was to cancel transgression, and to lay open the 
avenues of mercy ; without which, all penitence on 
the part of man would be unavailing, and all obedi- 
ence unacceptable. Under these circumstances, any 
clear assurance of immortal life would naturally 
have led to gross misconception of the terms on 
which God is pleased to offer that gift to mankind. 
A promise conveyed in the Law, would have been 
understood as a promise annexed to the ohservance 
of the Law. Obedience to that Law would have been 
consequently regarded as a requisite, and as a suffi- 
cient, qualification for obtaining from God the ful- 
filment of the promise. It would have been viewed 
as constituting a meritorious title to eternal life. 
Satisfaction to the divine justice, as a necessary pre- 
liminary to pardon and favour, would never have 
been thought of. Thus would the Israelite have 
been perverted in the principles of his faith. His 
hopes of happiness would have rested on grounds 
inconsistent with the eternal purpose and attributes 
of God. Thus would the self-righteous, bhnd to 
the corruption of his heart and the defects of his 
behaviour, have claimed the reward of immortahty 
as his due ; while the humble and contrite, sensible 
of his own transgressions, of the perfection of the 
Law which he had broken, and of the justice and 



revealed in the Pentateuch. IS 

holiness of the God whom he had offended, would 
altogether have despaired of mercy. 

But further. The wisdom of God had decreed, 
that the publication of the Law should be many agies 
anterior to that of the Gospel ; and the former was 
designed to be introductory and preparatory to the 
latter. Let us inquire, then, in what manner the 
success and reception of the more perfect dispensa- 
tion would have been affected by any deviation, as 
to the point we are at present considering, from the 
actual provisions of that dispensation which was 
preparatory to it. If I mistake not, it will appear, 
upon examination, that the tendency of such a de- 
viation would have been greatly detrimental to the 
cause of Christianity ; and that it would have created 
an obstacle, first, to its being received at all, and se- 
condly, to its being received in its purity. 

First, If the Law had been as explicit and decla- 
ratory as the Gospel on the subject of a future state, 
this circumstance must have been unfavourable to 
the establishment of Christianity. For the Jews, to 
whom this religion was first preached, would natu- 
rally have been indisposed to embrace a new charter, 
which contained no extension of the privileges con- 
veyed to them in an old one which they already 
possessed. This position will appear supported by 
powerful evidence, if we take a brief view of the 
circumstances under which the Gospel was offered 
to that nation, and of the reception which it actually 
experienced among them. 

The preaching of the humiliation and death of 
the Son of God was accompanied with an offer to 
such as should embrace the Christian covenant, of 



14 Why a future state is not explicitly 

life and immortality ; which, in the language of St. 
Paul, "were brought to light through the Gospel^." 
Notwithstanding, however, this powerful recom- 
niendation of the faith proposed to their accept- 
ance ; notwithstanding all the mighty evidences of 
truth, by which the ministry of our Lord and his 
apostles was supported ; the cross of Christ was a 
stumblingblock and a rock of offence to the Jews. 
Few of them could be prevailed on to embrace a 
doctrine, which severely mortified their pride, deep- 
ly shocked their national prejudices, and brought 
with it a stinging disappointment to their carnal 
and am.bitious views. 

Let us suppose now, that the promise of eternal 
life had been, in the preaching of the apostles, not 
what it now is, the peculiar distinction of the evan- 
gelical covenant ; but that it had been the mere re- 
petition of a promise, which the Jews and their fore- 
fathers had for many ages enjoyed : in what manner 
would the progress of the new religion have been 
affected by this circumstance ? Would it not have 
thus been stripped of that very attraction which 
chiefly recommended it to the hearts of its early 
converts ? The advantages which it really possessed 
were insufficient to overpower those feelings of hos- 
tility by which it was encountered : would not then 
a more determined opposition, and a more general 
rejection, have been the probable result, if the pro- 
mise of life and immortality had been annexed to a 
previous covenant? 

An incident recorded in the history of our Lord 

•' 2 Tim. i. 10. 



rexjealed in the Pentateuch, 15 

will serve to assist us in the decision of this ques- 
tion. Many of the early disciples of Christ, taking 
offence at the doctrine which he taught on an occa- 
sion of public discourse, withdrew from associating 
with him. At this time, as the evangelist informs 
us, " Jesus said unto the twelve. Will ye also go 
" away ? Then Simon Peter answered him. Lord, 
" to whom shall we go ? Thou hast the words of 
" ETERNAL LIFE '^." The motive which actuated 
this apostle, we may reasonably suppose to have 
been entertained in common by all the primitive 
adherents of the Saviour. Would this motive have 
been equally cogent, if the words of eternal life had 
been written in the Law of Moses, in characters 
equally plain and distinct with those in which we 
read them in the scriptures of the New Covenant ? 
Far from it. Had the promises of the Gospel con- 
tained nothing that was new, either as to the clear- 
ness or the authority of its declarations on this most 
interesting subject, it is utterly improbable that its 
doctrines would, in that perverted state of feeling 
and opinion which prevailed at the time of its intro- 
duction, have met with any favourable or even seri- 
ous attention. 

The prejudices which the Jews had imbibed in fa- 
vour of their national religion, constituted a princi- 
pal obstacle to the success of the apostolical labours 
for their conversion. Of these prejudices, one of 
the most deeply rooted had arisen from the high 
esteem and veneration with which they regarded 
their ancient law. By many of them, so high an 

^ John vi. ^1, 68. 



16 Why a future state is not explicitly 

opinion was entertained of its excellency and per- 
fection, that they viewed it sufficient for the utmost 
needs of man. They supposed it to contain the rule 
of justification, together with every thing else which 
is necessary in order to everlasting life^. The want 
of any new revelation they would not admit. Nor 
could they be prevailed on to entertain an opinion, 
so degrading, as they thought, to the honour of their 
national code and of themselves, as to suppose, that 
the oracles of God, which had been intrusted to 
their exclusive keeping, were in their design only 
preparatory? to a further communication of mercy 
and truth, which was to be more ample in its dis- 
coveries, and more diffusively imparted. In these 
mistaken notions and contracted views, we dis- 
cover the cause which chiefly operated in producing 
that general rejection which the Gospel experienced 
among the Jewish nation. And would not this cause 
have operated with a force greatly augmented, if 
their Law, which, being weak^, was unable to give 
everlasting life, had nevertheless plainly assured 
them of it ? 

Secondly, Had the Law of Moses supplied a greater 
clearness of discovery respecting a future life, it 

f See Macknight on the Epistles, Pref. to Rom. sect. 2 and 3 ; 
and Pref. to Gal. sect. 3. 

g ** Before faith came, we were kept under the law, shut up unto 
" the faith which should afterwards be revealed. Wlierefore the law 
** was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ." Gal. iii. 23, 24. 

^ *' If there had been a law which could have given life, verily 
** righteousness should have been by the law." Gal. iii. 21 . "What 
" the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God 
*' sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, 
** condemned sin in the flesh." Rom. viii. 3. 



revealed in the Pentateuch. 17 

would have thus contributed to mislead the early con- 
verts to the Gospel from an apprehension of its pure 
and genuine doctrines. This position will also be 
established by a reference to the circumstances which 
actually attended the first preaching of Christianity. 
The same prejudice, which, in its influence on one 
portion of the Jewish people, led to the total re- 
jection of the Gospel, occasioned considerable diffi- 
culty in conveying to that class of them who em- 
braced it, correct notions of its design and character. 
They misunderstood the intention of the Levitical 
ordinances, and formed an exaggerated estimate of 
their value and excellence. Hence arose the diffi- 
culty of convincing them, that the justification of man, 
which was the great requisite as a qualification for 
everlasting life, could be accomplished without an 
observance of the sacrifices, purifications, and other 
ceremonies, prescribed in the Mosaic ritual. " Ex- 
" cept/' said they, " ye be circumcised after the man- 
" ner of Moses, ye cannot be saved^." Now, though 
a future state forms no part of the Mosaic covenant, 
yet it is undeniable, that the belief of -that doctrine 
was generally entertained among the Jews in our 
Saviour's time : and it has been justly observed by 
bishop Warburton, that the superstitious attach- 
ment of the Jewish converts to the whole observ- 
ance of the Law originated in an erroneous persua- 
sion, that that doctrine formed a part of the Mosaic 
dispensation^. Suppose, then, that the Mosaic Law 

* Acts XV. 1 . 

^ ** Permit me to observe further, that this rabbinical notion 
*' of a future state of rewards and pimishments in the Mosaic 
" dispensation, which still encourages the remnant of your nation 

C 



18 Why a future state is not explicitly 

had actually countenanced such an opinion ; sup- 
pose that it had conveyed a plain and declaratory 
promise of everlasting life : would not an apparent 
sanction have thus been given to the misconceptions 
of the Jewish convert ? And would not an increased 
aversion to the simplicity of the Christian doctrine 
have been an inevitable consequence flowing from 
the encouragement thus given to mistaken views ? 

The prejudices of the Jews in favour of their 
ancient Law had the effect of alienating from the 
Gospel the great majority of that nation. Under 
the influence of these same prejudices, that small 
portion of them who embraced the new covenant, 
were led to disfigure its doctrine with ritual ob- 
servances, possessing in themselves no intrinsic va- 
lue, and of which the relative utility had ceased. 
In either case, these prejudices would have drawn 
encouragement from any explicit statement, in the 
Law of Moses, respecting the ultimate purpose of 
God as to the future condition of mankind. ^Vith 
the great body of the Jewish people, such a state- 
ment would V have operated as a considerable ob- 
struction to the acknowledgment of the Messiah. 
In the minds of the Jewish converts, it woidd have 
favoured the entertainment of opinions, utterly re- 

" to persist in rejecting the Gospel of Jesus, was the verj' prc^ii- 
" dice which, in the first ages of Christianity, so superstitiously 
" attached the converts from Judaism to the whole observance of 
" the Law." Divine Legation of Moses. Dedication to tlie JeAvs 
prefixed to the Fourth Book. 

That this notion was really entertained by the Jews, may he 
seen from 2 Mace. vii. 36. where the Law of Moses is plainly de- 
•signated as " God's covenant of everlasting life." 



revealed in the Pentateuch. 19 

pugnant to those terms on which alone (consistently 
with the knowledge afforded us of the divine will 
and attributes) we are taught to hope for a partici- 
pation in the covenanted mercies of God. On the 
whole, its influence must have been at variance with 
the character, and inconsistent with the success, of 
the Christian scheme of redemption. 

Add to this, the danger that would have arisen, 
lest the Gentile converts should be infected with the 
errors of their judaizing brethren, when the Penta- 
teuch (thus combining the Levitical precepts wdth 
the promise of everlasting life, but silent, other- 
wise than in the language of type and allegory and 
obscure intimation, as to the atonement of Christ 
and the evangelical rule of justification) had been 
placed in their hands, as a portion of that volume 
which was henceforth to be the standard of their 
faith. 

For it is to be remembered, that the ancient peo- 
ple of Israel are not the only persons whose wel- 
fare is involved in this question. The Mosaic code 
was destined to form a standard portion of the vo- 
lume of inspiration, for the perpetual instruction and 
edification of mankind in general^, after its ceremo- 
nial and political enactments had been abrogated in 
favour of a more perfect and comprehensive dis- 
pensation. What now, in its influence on the ge- 
neral welfare of man, must have been the conse- 
quence of introducing into it any positive declara- 

' " Whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for 
" our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the 
" Scriptures might have hope." Rom. xv. 4. 

c 2: 



20 Why a future state is not explicitly 

tions respecting a future state ? What effect would 
thus have been produced on the religious sentiments 
of those who sliould in after-ages embrace the Gos- 
pel ? Would it not have led them to contemplate a 
legal obedience as the ground of justification ? When 
it was discovered, that a promise of everlasting hap- 
piness had been conveyed by the divine law to those 
ages and generations to whom the manner of our re- 
demption was a mystery, would it not have been dif- 
ficult to persuade men, that the merits and sacrifice 
of Christ are the only just foundation of their hopes 
respecting a future state? Would not they have 
been prone to overlook the connexion which sub- 
sists between the cross of Christ and their own sal- 
vation ? There are those who deny the necessity 
and the efficacy of an atonement as the means of 
reconciliation between God and man. Would not 
such opinions have enjoyed, on our present suppo- 
sition, a show of countenance and support from 
Scripture, of which they are now destitute ? If the 
Law had revealed in a declaratory manner the doc- 
trine of a future life, this doctrine must have either 
been a sanction to the Law, or not. If it had been 
a sanction, then the peculiar promise of the Gospel, 
springing from the precious sacrifice of Christ, would 
liave been anticipated in a covenant of works. If 
it had not been a sanction, then it could have been 
no longer a doctrine of future reward and punish- 
ment, l)ut an antinomian doctrine of future happi- 
ness and misery, from which all moral designation 
would have Ijeen excluded, and which must have 
operated in a manner totally destructive of piety 
and virtue. 



revealed in the Pentateuch, 21 

If we admit the correctness of the foregoing view, 
it must appear, that the annexing to the Levitical 
Law a promise of everlasting life, would have had 
a tendency to excite, in the minds of both Israelites 
and Christians, sentiments, inconsistent with that 
humility which forms a necessary qualification for 
the divine favour, and repugnant to that faith which 
is the evangelical condition of salvation. We can- 
not, therefore, fail to recognize, in the omission of 
such promise, an instance of consistency and agree- 
ment with the general scheme of Christian redemp- 
tion, and a measure of subserviency to the ultimate 
design of revealed religion. 

Indeed, when we contemplate, on the one hand, the 
awful and mysterious reserve of the Law, and on the 
other, the plain, direct, and frequent assurances of 
the Gospel ; we can hardly fail to recognize in the 
contrast, an appointment wisely adapted to produce 
in the minds of the Jews, a conviction of the in- 
adequacy of the former dispensation, and of the 
sufficiency of the latter^ as a guide to happiness in a 
future state. No means of greater efficacy could 
have been employed to enhance, in their estimation, 
the excellence of a religion, which was thus able to 
satisfy the ardent wishes and anxieties of men re- 
specting their eternal condition. Nothing could have 
been more conducive to a just conception on their 
parts of the design of their national code, as being 
merely preparatory to a fuller manifestation of the 
divine glory and a more ample provision for the 
wants of mankind. Had the case been different ; 
had the words of Moses been similar to those of 
Christ and his apostles ; there would have been little 

c 3 



22 l^niy a future state is not explicitly, 8^c. 

reason to wonder at the neglect and disregard which 
were shewn to the ministry of the latter. From 
men who possess distinct assurances of immortal 
happiness, together with clear instructions as to the 
mode of attaining it, and these sanctioned by the 
authority of God himself; from such men, I say, 
what reason have we to expect any favourable, or 
even patient, regard to the pretensions of a new re- 
velation ? What can such a revelation bestow upon 
them, beyond what they already have? So full a 
measure of hope and consolation attached to their 
ancient faith, must have satisfied their utmost de- 
sires, and have destroyed that powerful inducement 
to embrace the Gospel which arose from its bright 
prospects and cheering encouragements. 



A future state was always ^ 8^c, 2S 

CHAPTER III. 

THE DOCTRINE OF A FUTURE STATE WAS ALWAYS ENTER- 
TAINED BY THE ISRAELITES FROM THE VERY EARLIEST 
PERIOD OF THEIR HISTORY. 

avTOv TToXneiqt, e^erai^cioy to, kccto, tqvi; lov'baiov<;, o'vyKpiVOt ttj vvv ayayrj 
Tuv XoiTTcov eOvaV OTAENAS MAAAON AN ©ATM ASAP uq ev uv- 
OpuTTOK; itavTac jwev ra [A"^ y^pyia-ijAcc ra -yeve* ray auBpoyirav TrepiTiptJixevov^^ 
lAOva, 8e TO, evy^^py^crra, itccpabiQafAevovt;. — 'Oiroiov S' vjv Trap' avroK; to e^ 
en aitoLhav ovvy^av tibocaKeaBai vTcepavct^aciyeiv [/.ey iroccrciv t'/jv cci(r6rjT'^v 
(pvtny, Koct {A,ritay.ov avrri^ vo[/.i^€iv I'dpvaOat roy &eov, avco Se koci intep rot 
a-cctxarcc ^-/jreiy avTov ; DHAIKON AE TO, 2XEA0N AMA TENE- 
2EI KAI 2TMnAHPa2El TOT AOFOT AIAA2KE20A1 ATTOT2 
THN TH2 -^^TXH^ AQANASIAN, KAI TA 'THO THN AIKAIO- 
THPIA, KAI TA2 TIMAD TON KAAHS BEBiaKOTON ; Origenes 
contra Celsunij V. 42. 

J3UT what are we then to conclude ? Because the 
Mosaic Law contains no explicit declarations relat- 
ing to a future state, shall we therefore say that no 
belief of that doctrine was entertained by the an- 
cient people of Israel ? This is no consequence of our 
admission respecting the silence of that code\ It isj 
on the contrary, a point which claims a suspended 
judgment and a careful examination. It is greatly 
important in itself, by reason of its connexion with 
the general economy of revelation : and it brings 

^ Warburton, however, contends, that it is a necessary conse- 
quence of that admission : " One might fairly conclude," says he, 
*' that the people's not having this doctrine, was a necessary con- 
*' sequence of Moses's not teaching it, in a Law which forbids the 
" least addition [Deut. iv. 2. and xii. 32.] to the written insti- 
" tute." DIv. Leg. b. v. §. 5. vol. v. p. 1 74. Ed. 1 811 . This is a 
bold flight of logic. See the Supplementary Remarks at the 
end of this work. 

C 4 



24 A future state was always the 

with it an additional claim to our attention on two 
accounts. First, because the interests of revelation, as 
to tliis particular^ hav e been assailed by the misrepre- 
sentation and sophistry of its enemies^. Secondly, 
because those same interests have experienced some 
degree of injustice from the mistaken views of its 
incorrect and injudicious advocates : the question 
we are about to discuss having been the subject of a 
controversy, in which various contending disputants 
have, with the usual vehemence of polemical con- 
tradiction, pushed their respective conclusions to ex- 
tremes, which are not only widely distant from each 
other, but, as we conceive, equally remote from the 
truth. 

On the one hand it is maintained, that " the doc- 
" trine of a future state of reward and punishment 
" did make the most essential part of the Mosaic dis- 
" pcnsation." Among the supporters of this opinion 
are reckoned the unbelieving Jews of the present day, 
and several of the ancient Christian writers^. 

With regard to the unbelieving Jews, in whom 
conviction is obstructed by inveterate prejudice, it is 
natural enougli that they should avail themselves to 
the utmost of a principle, which may serve to coun- 
tenance their obstinacy in resisting the evidence of 
the Gospel. Scarcely any thing, in their estimation, 
can tend more effectually to the disparagement of 
the Christian scheme, than a notion, that the bless- 
ings connected with it are in no degree superior to 

*■' Boliiii^ljroke, \\)ltaiie, and (Jibboii. 

' This I^s staled on the authority of Warbiirton : from whom 
also the foregoing eitation is extracted. Divine Legation of Moses, 
hookvi. sect. 1. ^ee the Supplementary Remarks. 



popular belief of the Israelites. 25 

those of their ancient Law. Scarcely any thing can 
be more in unison with the belief (to which they so 
tenaciously adhere) in the perfect nature and eter- 
nal duration of the Mosaic institutions. It has been 
justly observed, that the violence they have offered 
to the meaning of the sacred text, and the distorted 
interpretations of it which they have adopted in the 
vain attempt to establish this position, have originated 
in their unwillingness to acknowledge the imperfect 
character and temporary design of the Law*^; for 
these seem to follow as an inevitable consequence, 
from admitting the absence, in that Law, of any 
promise respecting a future state. But it is matter 
of just regret, that an opinion so derogatory to the 
honour of the Gospel and to the value of the Chris- 
tian sacrifice, should gain reception with those who 
believe, that man cannot be justified by the deeds of 
the Law, and that the blood of bulls and of goats 
cannot take away sin. If the Law could not give 
justification, and without justification eternal life 
cannot be obtained, we see not how a promise of 
life and immortality could be annexed to the Law. 
The doctrine of a future state, we are to observe, 
contains both a promise and a denunciation, it em- 
braces both reward and punishment. The promise, 
as we have seen, could not, without violating the 
consistency of revealed doctrine, have been directly 

^ " Nunc Judaei multum de fiituro seeculo, de resurrectione 
" mortuorum, de vita seterna loquuntur et ex legis verbis ea ex- 
** torquere potius quam ostendere conantur, ne legem Mosis imper- 
*' fectam esse cogantur agnoscere/' Episcopii Inst. Theol. lib. iii. 
sect. 1 . cap. 2. See the Supplementary Remarks. 



26 A future state was always the 

inserted. How then could the whole have been in- 
troduced where a part was plainly inadmissible ? 

In this case, the burden of proof rests with our 
opponents. There can be no necessity for establish- 
ing the negative of the position, till a previous view 
has been exhibited of the grounds on which its va- 
lidity is maintained. But if the writings of Moses 
are admitted as the only competent authority for the 
decision of this question, it is plain and indisputable 
that no such authority can be adduced : since there 
is not a single passage in the Pentateuch, which 
can, upon any fair principles of interpretation, be 
construed into a direct and explicit assertion of a 
future state of reward and punishment^. 



'-^ " Primo quaeritur an in V. Testamento nullum omnino exstet 
" vitae aeternae promissum ? De eo enim a nonnullis dubitatur. 
" Resp. Huic quaestioni optinie mihi videtur respondere Augus- 
•* tinus, distinguens nomen Veteris Testamenti : nam eo intelligi 
" ait, aut pactum illud, quod in monte Sinai factum est, aut omnia 
" quae in Mose, hagiographis, ac prophetis continentur. Si Vetus 
*' Testamentum posteriori sensu accipiatur, concedi forsitan possit, 
*• esse in eo nonnuUa future vitae non obscura indicia ; praeser- 
*• tim in libro Psalmorum, Daniele, et Ezekiele ; qudnquam et in 
•* his I'lhris clarum ac disertuni ceternce vitce promissum vix ac ne 
'• vix quidem reperias. Sed haec qualiacunque erant, non erant 
*' nisi praeludia et anticipationes gratiae evangelicae ; ad legem 
*' non pcrtinebant. Lex enim quatenus ab apostolo in suis cum 
" .fudaeis disputationibus consideratur, proprie designat pactum 
" in Sinai factum. Vide Gal. iv, ver. 24. Illud autem habuit 
*' promissa terrena et terrena tantum, ut videre est Exod. xxiii. 25, 
" 2G. Lev. xxvi. 3. et Deut. vii. 12, 13. et xviii. 2. &c. Si quis 
" contra sentiat ejus est locum dare, ubi aeternae vitae promissio 
*' extat : quod certe impossibile est." BuUi Harmonia Aposto- 
lica, Diss. IL x. 8. 



"popular belief of the Israelites. 27 

A contrary view of the subject has, however, 
been maintained. It has been contended, that, so 
far was the Law from affording to the subjects of 
its government any countenance for the belief of a 
future retribution, that that doctrine was not even 
entertained among the Jews till a short time previ- 
ous to the period which terminates the sacred his- 
tory of the Old Testament. This position comes to 
us recommended by the sanction of a name^, which 
may justly command whatever veneration is due to 
genius and learning, subsisting together in a splendid 
and almost unrivalled combination^. 

The authority of an illustrious name cannot, how- 
ever, invalidate the right of investigating truth, nor 
exonerate from the sacred obligation of vindicating 
it. It is fit, therefore, that the opinion we have now 
stated should be subjected to a fair examination, 
for the purpose of ascertaining its agreement with, 
or its repugnance to, the dictates of reason and the 



^ Bishop Warburton. 

s See Div. Leg. b. v. §.4. vol. v. p. 146. The Israelitish po- 
lity is designated as one " which had not the sanction of a future 
" state of rewards and punishments." B. v. §. 5. p. 158. ** I go 
** on to shew that future rewards and punishments, which could 
'• not be the sanction of the Mosaic dispensation, were 
*' NOT TAUGHT in it at all : and that, in consequence of this 
** omission, the people had not the doctrine of a future state 
** for many ages." Ibid. p. 174. " I shall shew from a circum- 
•* stance the clearest and most incontestible, that the Israelites 
** from the time of Moses to the time of their captivity , had not the 
" doctrine of a future state of reward and punishment.'' B. iii. 
Appen. vol. iii. p. 321. *' It is very true, God's own chosen people 
" were shut out from the knowledge of a future state.'' 



28 A future state was always the 

standard of revealed truth. To this examination 
we will proceed. 

With respect, then, to the degree and extent of 
religious knowledge in general, which were possess- 
ed by the chosen people of God, we are taught to 
believe, that they stood on a high ground of superi- 
ority to the rest of mankind. The points of dis- 
tinction between them and the Gentile world con- 
sisted in exclusive advantages belonging to them- 
selves. That they were favoured only in some par- 
ticulars of the revelation which they enjoyed, while 
in other points of doctrine this favour was counter- 
balanced by a comparative ignorance and deficiency, 
is a groundless supposition. The language of holy 
writ affords the most unequivocal testimony, that 
the difference between them and the Gentiles, as to 
all points of religious faith, was in every respect ad- 
vantageous to the Israelite ; that it had arisen out 
of a more abundant measure of the divine favour, 
and a greater degree of clearness and certainty in 
the discoveries of the divine will. The following 
citations cannot, without harshness, be reconciled to 
any other view of the subject. " Now therefore, if 
" ye will obey my voice indeed, and keep my cove- 
" nant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto 
" me above all people : for all the earth is mine. 
" And ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests, 
" and an holy nation '\" " What nation is there so 
" great, who hath God so nigh unto them, as the 
" Lord our God is in all things that we call upon 
" him for ? And what nation is there so great, that 

'' Exodus xix. 5, 6. 



popular helief of the Israelites. 219 

" hath statutes and judgments so righteous as all 
" this law which I set before you this day^ ?" " Ye 
" stand this day all of you before the Lord your 

" God, -that thou shouldest enter into covenant 

" with the Lord thy God, and into his oath, which 
'' the Lord thy God maketh with thee this day : that 
*' he may establish thee to-day for a people unto him- 
" self, and that he may be unto thee a God, as he 
" hath said unto thee, and as he hath sworn unto 
" thy fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob^." 
" What one nation in the earth is like thy people, 
" even like Israel, whom God went to redeem for a 
" people to himself, and to make him a name, and 
" to do for you great things and terrible, for thy 
" land, before thy people, which thou redeemedst to 
" thee from Egypt, from the nations and their gods ? 
" For thou hast confirmed to thyself thy people Is- 
" rael to be a people unto thee for ever : and thou, 
" Lord, art become their God^." " Happy art 
" thou, O Israel : who is like unto thee, O people 
" saved by the Lord, the shield of thy help, and 
" who is the sword of thy excellency'^!" These de- 
clarations are indeed general : but they are wholly 
inconsistent with the existence of such a signal dis- 
advantage as that which is involved in the supposi- 
tion of Warburton. The following passage has how- 
ever a closer relation to the subject : " This is your 
" wisdom and your understanding in the sight of 
" the nations, which shall hear all these statutes, 
" and say. Surely this great nation is a wise and 



' Deut. iv. 7, 8. k Deut. xxix. 10, 12, 13. 

i 2 Sam. vii. 23, 24. ^ Deut. xxxiii. 2P. 



30 A future state was always the 

" understanding people"." But St. Paul is still 
more express to the point : " What advantage then 
" hath the Jew ? or what profit is there of circum- 
" cision ? 3IucJi every way : chiefly, because that 
" unto theai were committed the oracles of God®." 

Now the belief of a future state has been enter- 
tained in every age to which the memory of the 
world extends, and by every nation among whom 
any religious sentiments have been found to exist. 
This truth has been incontestably maintained by 
the celebrated writer whose opinion we are now ex- 
aminingP; subject, however, (according to the views 
of the same writer,) to the sole exception of the 
Israelites who lived between the time of Moses and 
the captivity of Judah. On the inestimable value 
of this doctrine in its tendency to promote the hap- 

" Deut. iv. 6. ° Rom. iii. 1,2. 

P Divine Legation of Moses, book ii. sect. I . *' There never 
** was, in any age of the world, from the most early accounts of 
** time, to this present hour, any civil- policied nation or people, 
*' who had a religion, of which the chief foundation and support 
" was not the doctrine of a future state of rewards and pu- 
" nishments ; the Jewish people only excepted." So also 
Bayle, whose words are quoted by Warburton as follows : *' Toutes 
" les religions du monde, tant la vraie que les fausses, roulent sur 
*♦ ce grand pivot, qu'il y a un juge invisible qui punit et qui r^- 
" compense, apres cette vie, les actions des hommes tant exteri- 
" eures qu'int^rieures. C'est de la que Ton suppose que d^coule 
." la principale utility de la religion." In order to mark the very 
extensive prevalence of the doctrine of a future state, it may not 
be uninteresting to observe, that cases have been alleged of bar- 
barous nations, among whom the belief of a God was extinct, or 
nearly so, but who nevertheless were found to retain the belief of 
a future state. See Warburton, Div. Leg. b, ii. §. 4. vol. ii. p. 
20f). and Tillotson's Sermons, vol. iii. Serm. 120. 



popular belief of the Israelites, SI 

piness of mankind ; on its importance as the great 
incitement to virtue, the main pillar and support of 
human society, the sanction and enforcement of 
morality ; on its connexion with the private duties 
of individuals, and the public welfare of civil com- 
munities : we need not expatia-te. That it is the 
anchor of the soul when beaten by the blasts and 
storms of adversity ; that it is of absolute necessity 
in order to sustain and invigorate the spirits of suf- 
fering innocence under the discouragement of an 
unequal Providence ; that it provides the most effec- 
tual restraint upon the evil passions of mankind; 
that the wisest provisions of legislative policy, un- 
aided by its support, are but feeble barriers against 
violence and injustice : these are principles, so ge- 
nerally recognized by common acknowledgment, that 
they seem to border upon the character of self-evi- 
dent truths. We need not dwell upon the hardship 
of man being accountable, without knowing that he 
is so ; of his being capable of everlasting happiness, 
without incitement to labour after it ; of his being 
subject to retribution, and yet not aware of his dan- 
ger. Neither the advantages connected with the 
belief of this doctrine, nor the miseries attendant 
upon the want of it, can be denied or disputed. On 
the whole, it may be asserted, that, of all the doc- 
trines of revealed religion, there is none so import- 
ant in its consequences, none so interesting to the, 
feelings of mankind, none attended with such a 
powerful moral influence, as the doctrine of a future 
state of reward and punishment. 

Can it then be deemed consistent with the notion 
of a people peculiarly favoured by God, that they 



32 A future state was always the 

should continue for nine hundred years ^, excluded 
from participating in a benefit, which during the 
same period was enjoyed by every other nation in 
the world, even the most idolatrous and wicked? 
Can they with propriety have been designated as a 
preeminently ivise and under staiiding peojile ; can 
they have gained the admiration of the world as such ; 
if they had regarded themselves in no other light 
than the beasts which perish, while every other nation 
maintained the hope of an eternal and happy exist- 
ence as the reward of virtue ? Shall we, in conform- 
ity with the language of St. Paul, admit that they 
had in every respect much advantage over the rest of 
mankind ; and shall we yet believe that they were 
totally destitute of that doctrine which is more es- 
sential to the happiness of man than any other reli- 
gious principle whatever ? The two propositions ap- 
pear repugnant and contradictory to each other ; nor 
will it be an easy task for ingenuity to explain, how 
the latter of them can be reconciled with that sub- 
mission which is due to apostolical authority. 

Will it be alleged in reply, that the disadvantage 
of this omission was compensated by the regular 
distribution of temporal good and evil? To talk 
thus, is to contradict the voice of nature, and to 
falsify the concurrent testimony of mankind^. For 
when was the greatest prosperity able to calm that 

« 

^ The Law was given (according to the common chronology) 
1491 years, and the captivity took place 588 years, before the 
Christian era : the intervening space thus amounting to 903 years. 

■■ Warburton, however, speaks^f this distribution as *' an equi- 
** valent for future rewards and punishments." Div. Leg. b. v. 
§. f). vol. v. )). 187. 



popular belief of the Israelites. 33 

dread of annihilation which universally prevails in 
the minds of men ? *• Quae potest in vita esse jucun- 
" ditas," says Cicero^ " cum dies atque noctes cogi- 
" tandum sit, jam jamque esse moriendum^?" Where 
can you find an antidote for this fear except in the 
hope of prolonged existence and future happiness ? 
Man in his very best estate is altogether vanity : he 
cannot think on the grave without feeling himself 
to be so. To live in affluence ; to have within our 
reach all the various comforts which the world af- 
fords, together with the fullest capacity of enjoying 
them : this kind of life has generally been found to 
increase, instead of mitigating, the horror of death ; 
not to molHfy the wound, but to give a sharper pun- 
gency to the sting. Nor, again, is there any cause 
which operates more powerfully to weaken men's 
attachment to the present life, than the want of tem- 
poral blessings, the frequency of calamity, and the 
long exjDerience of adversity and suffering. These 
observations are expressed in language equally just 
and beautiful by the son of Sirach : "' O death, how 
" bitter is the remembrance of thee to a man that 
'•' liveth at rest in his possessions, unto the man that 
" hath nothing to vex him, and that hath prosperity 
*' in all things : yea, unto him that is yet able to re- 
" ceive meat ! O death, acceptable is thy sentence 
'• unto the needy, and unto him whose strength fail- 
" eth, that is now in the last age, and is vexed with 
*' all things, and to him that despaireth, and hath lost 
" patience* !" 

It must appear then, that the doctrine of a future 

" Tiisc. Disp. I. 7. t Eccliis. xli. 1, 2. 



S4i A future state was always, &c. 

state formed a principle of religious belief with the 
Israelitish people throughout every period of their 
existence as a nation. This inference must neces- 
sarily follow from the argument which has been now 
stated, unless the validity of that argument shall be 
shaken l^y objections of greater force than any which 
we anticipate. The position will, however, acquire 
a great accession of evidence from the considerations 
which will be offered in the following chapter : in 
which we propose to institute an inquiry into the 
sources from w^hich the doctrine of a future state, 
viewed as an article of popular faith entertained by 
the ancient Israelites, may have been derived. 



Origin of the belief in a future state, &c. 35 



CHAPTER IV. 

AN INQUIRY INTO THE SOURCES FROM WHICH THE AN- 
CIENT ISRAELITES MAY HAVE DERIVED THEIR BELIEF 
IN A FUTURE STATE. 

JL HE difference between the religious condition of 
the ancient Israelite and that of the heathen world, 
was entirely favourable to the Israelite : it did not 
consist in a partial superiority counterbalanced by 
corresponding disadvantages ; but in all particulars, 
whether as to knowledge or happiness, the Israelite 
was superior. This proposition we have endeavour- 
ed to establish. Admitting the validity of the rea- 
soning by which it was supported, we must infer, 
that if the belief in a future state was entertained 
by the Gentile world, it must have been entertained 
in common with them by this peculiar nation. When 
therefore we propose to inquire into the origin of 
that belief, as it was received among the Israelites, 
it will be requisite that we should, in the first place, 
investigate those common sources from which it was 
derived into the religious system of the whole world. 
This branch of our inquiry will therefore form the 
first head of the ensuing disquisition. We shall, 
secondly, advance a step further towards the object 
in view, by illustrating the negative tendency of the 
Mosaic Law. This will be for the purpose of shew- 
ing, that the omission in that code of any positive 
declarations respecting a future state would have no 
tendency to eradicate from the mind of the Israelite 
that belief, which he would otherwise have cherished 

D 2 



36 Origin of the belief in a futwe state 

in common with his fellow-creatures. Thirdly, we 
shall undertake to prove, that the provisions of the 
Law, far from tending to suppress this doctrine, 
were positively adapted to countenance and keep it 
alive, in a degree which far exceeded any encourage- 
ment which was afforded to the belief of it among 
the heathen. 



SECTION I. 

Inquiry into the origin of the belief in a future state, con- 
sidered as a doctrine belonging to the universal religion, 
of mankind. 

Qua de re ingens apud philosophos disceptatio est : nee quidquam 
taraen explicare aut probare potuerunt ii, qui verum de anima 
sentiebant; expertes enim hiijus divinte eruditionis, nee argu- 
menta vera, quibus vincerent, attulerunt, nee testimonia, quibus 
probarent. Lactantu Div. hist. iii. 13. 

FIRST then, we are to investigate the causes 
which must have operated on the minds of tlie Is- 
raelites, in common with the rest of mankind, to 
produce a belief in a future state of retribution. 

A few prefatory remarks will here be serviceable 
in the way of introduction to this branch of our 
inquiry. 

It is by no means a necessary part of the reason- 
ing we are about to pursue, that we should account 
for the universal prevalence of this doctrine, by ac- 
curately tracing the connexion between the effect 
and its cause. It is sufficient for our purpose, that 
the doctrine itself did universally prevail among 
mankind ; as the celebrated writer, against whose 
principles we contend, has sufficiently proved in a 



among mankind in general. 37 

learned and elaborate disquisition on the subject*. 
If then it be certain, that this doctrine was univer- 
sally incorporated into the religious systems of the 
Gentile world ; if it be certain that the Israelite, as 
to all points of religious distinction between him 
and the Gentile, was eminently favoured, and that 
he was not, as to any such point, subject to a dis- 
advantage in which the other did not partake ; last- 
ly, if it be also certain, that the want of this doc- 
trine would, in its influence on the happiness of 
man, be a very great disadvantage : if these things 
be undeniable, how can you evade the conclusion, 
that the chosen people of God must have enjoyed 
at least as much light upon this subject as the rest 
of the world ? 

But it is, on the other hand, a principle highly 
important to our argument, that the universality of 
this belief in a future retribution be regarded as the 
result of a special appointment of the divine will. 
We are fully warranted in so regarding it : nay, we 
cannot without impiety regard it otherwise, even 
though the secondary causes, through which that 
will has been carried into effect, may lie concealed 
from our view. It is not necessary in order to re- 
cognise an appointment of Providence, that we 
should be able to trace the various successive steps 
which have intervened between its first origin and 
its final accomplishment. The mode of operation 
belonging to some of the most important laws which 
regulate the movements of the natural creation, will 
ever baffle the utmost penetration and sagacity of 

^ Div. Leg. book ii. §. 1. et seq. 
D 3 



38 Orighi of the helief in a future state 

man : such are the gravitation of bodies, the process 
of vegetation, and the connexion subsisting between 
the voUtion and the motions of animal life. Now 
as we alike refer to God, as their author, both the 
dispensations of revealed religion and the constitu- 
tion of the natural world, it is reasonable to sup- 
pose, that a similarity of proceeding should be ob- 
servable in both. It cannot therefore be required, 
that we should distinctly unfold all the means which 
may have been employed by Infinite Wisdom, for the 
purpose of bringing about a general concurrence in 
the expectations of mankind respecting a future re- 
tribution. Methods may have been employed, and 
those too of powerful operation, with a view to 
this end, which the unsearchable wisdom of God 
may have judged it right to withhold from the 
knowledge of his creatures^. The possible em- 
ployment of such methods we may well conceive- 

^ " There might possibly be among the few faithful in the 
*' world a traditionary exposition of the promises of God, ground- 
" ed upon more express revelations, made either before or soon 
" after the flood, than have come down to our times.'' Bishop 
Sherlock's Dissertations, Diss. II. p. 176. in the 4th vol. of his 
works, edit. Oxford, 1812. The observation relates to the cele- 
brated passage in Job, xix. 25, 26, 27. The term promises is not, 
indeed, strictly agreeable to the views maintained in this treatise ; 
but we may by a parity of reasoning suppose, that means suffi- 
ciently efficacious may have been providentially employed for the 
same pjirpose, of which means no knowledge has been trans- 
mitted to us. But indeed 1 do not object to the above term, 
provided that nothing further is understood by it than the promise 
of a Messiah, the blessedness of whose expected advent could in 
no other way have been reasonably understood, than by regarding 
him as the author of everlasting life, and of man's deliverance 
from the eflTccls of the fall. 



among mankind in general. 39 

This ought to be borne in mind as a weighty con- 
sideration in the reasoning which is about to be in- 
troduced ; since it is adequate to supply any defi- 
ciency of proof under which that reasoning may be 
supposed to labour. Let it suffice that the doctrine 
of a future state was believed by the whole Gen- 
tile world. This, we say, is a fact which cannojt 
be accounted for on Christian principles otherwise 
than as an express appointment of Providence. For 
to suppose that a principle of such powerful influ- 
ence on the conduct and the happiness of rational 
beings should have been thus universally diffused, 
without any provision in the counsels of Supreme 
Wisdom for the production of such an effect, and 
without any providential design as to the conse- 
quences resulting from it : this would evince a mode 
of thinking on the subject of the divine attributes, 
for which a patron or an advocate can be found only 
in the school of Epicurus. 

And I think it will appear, after mature consi- 
deration, that we have good reason to admit the 
probability of certain means having been thus em- 
ployed by God, which have not been distinctly un- 
folded in the Mosaic writings. We have already 
examined the consequences which might have been 
expected to flow from the insertion in those writ- 
ings of any explicit declarations relative to the con- 
dition of men after death. We have endeavoured 
to illustrate, in the omission of such declarations, an 
instance of the wisdom with which the earlier dis- 
pensations of religion were adapted to promote the 
final success of the Gospel. And may not the same 
consequences be contemplated as the probable result 

D 4 



40 Origin of the belief i?i a future state 

of conveying in those records a full description of 
the various methods which God may have employed 
for the purpose of establishing a belief of this doc- 
trine in the minds of men ? Had the accounts we 
possess relative to this point been more particular 
and copious, would not this, in its influence upon 
that people, for whose exclusive use the Mosaic re- 
cords were primarily designed, have been nearly 
tantamount to a direct promise and a positive as- 
surance ? 

We will now proceed to investigate the causes 
which may have operated to produce in the minds 
of mankind in general the belief of a future retribu- 
tion : in which inquiry we do not, however, calcu- 
late upon that deficiency of evidence which it was 
the design of the foregoing observations to supply. 

I. " And the Lord God said unto the serpent, Be- 
" cause thou hast done this, thou art cursed above 
" all cattle, and above every beast of the field ; upon 
" thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all 
" the days of thy life : and I will put enmity be- 
" tween thee and the woman, and between thy seed 
** and her seed ; it shall bruise thy head, and thou 
" shalt l^ruise his heel. Unto the woman he said, 
'' I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy con- 
" ception ; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children ; 
" and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he 
" shall rule over thee. And unto Adam he said, 
" Because thou has hearkened unto the voice of thy 
" wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I com- 
" manded thee, saying. Thou slialt not eat of it : 
•' cursed is the ground for thy sake ; in sorrow shalt 
*' thou eat of it all the days of thy life ; thorns also 



among mankind in general. 41 

" and thistles shall it bring forth to thee ; and thou 
" shalt eat the herb of the field ; in the sweat of thy 
" face shalt thou eat breads till thou return unto the 
" ground ; for out of it wast thou taken : for dust 
" thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return^'." 

On the foregoing passage, we have to offer the 
following observations. 

Fii'st, The denunciation on the serpent would be 
construed by our first parents into a promise to 
themselves of future triumph over their enemy, to 
be achieved by the posterity of the woman. The 
prospect thus afforded they would regard as given 
for their consolation under the miseries of their fal- 
len state. With this prospect they would therefore 
associate the hope of a deliverance from the dread- 
ful evil which they had now brought upon them- 
selves. That evil being death, the notion of a de- 
liverance must have been correspondent, and must 
have embraced in it the prospect of a rescue from 
mortality. 

Secondly, Adam and Eve would regard themselves 
as the representatives, in this transaction, of all their 
future posterity. They could not but understand 
(for if they understood it not when the awful judg- 
ment was denounced, they would soon be taught by 
the event) that their descendants were comprehend- 
ed together with themselves in the doom of return- 
ing to the dust. They would therefore view them as 
included alike in the promise of deliverance. The 
benefit they were taught to expect would not, in 
their contemplation^ be limited to any portion of 

'^ Gen. iii. 14—19 



42 Origin of the belief in a future state 

mankind who might live either at the time of the 
victory over the serpent, or after it. For this would 
have been of slender avail for the consolation of 
those who were actually suffering under the conse- 
quences of the fall. 

Thirdly, That the malediction of the serpent 
was thus designed to afford a hope of immortality 
for man, will further appear from considering the 
doom itself which was incurred by Adam and Eve. 
" The judgment/' says Sherlock, '' is awful and se- 
** vere : the woman is doomed to sorrow in concep- 
" tion ; the man to sorrow and travail all the days 
" of his life ; the ground is cursed for his sake ; and 
" the end of the judgmeiit is, I>iist thou art, and 
" unto dust thou shalt return. Had they been left 
" thus, they might have continued in their labour 
*' and sorrow for their appointed time, and at last 
" returned to dust, without any well-grounded hope 
" or confidence in God : they must have looked upon 
" themselves as rejected by their Maker, dehvered 
"up to trouble and sorrow in this world, and as 
" having no hope in any other. Upon this foot, I 
" conceive there could have been no religion left in 
" the world ; for a sense of religion without hope is 
" a state of frenzy and distraction, void of all in- 
** ducements to love and obedience, or any thing else 
" that is praiseworthy^." Such hope could not re- 
late to the present life, because that would have 
])ecn inconsistent with the nature of the penalty 

^ Sherlock's Discourses on Prophecy. Disc. 111. The whole 
of lliat prelate's remarks on this subject are highly deserving of 
attention. 



among mankind in general. 4S 

which had been denounced ; it must therefore have 
related to a future. To this view it may in- 
deed be objected, that the dread of God's omnipo- 
tence and the fear of falling into a worse condition, 
would have supplied the operation of a religious mo- 
tive. But a notion of religion like this, in which 
fear alone prevails to the total exclusion of hope 
and love, is wholly foreign to all those characters 
under which religion is described to us in Scripture. 
" There is mercy with thee," says the Psalmist, 
" therefore shalt thou be feared^." We consider 
our conclusion then unshaken, that religion, under 
the circumstances immediately connected with the 
fall, could never have subsisted in the world without 
the support of a future state. 

Fourthly^ The penalty which had been threaten- 
ed was not inflicted immediately after the transgres- 
sion. " In the day that thou eatest thereof thou 
" shalt surely die^." Here was an abatement of 
the divine severity, with which our first parents can 
hardly have failed to connect the hope of further 
mercy, and that in a way quite incompatible with 
the state of sublunary wretchedness on which they 
had just entered. The respite afforded them would 
be viewed in conjunction with the promise of a 
triumph over their adversary : and the continuance 
of life would naturally be regarded, as given with a 
probationary design, for the purpose of enabling 
them to become qualified for the benefits of the 
promised victory and deliverance. 

II. Thus favourable to the expectation of a fu- 
ture state were the views unfolded to our first pa- 

•^ Psalm cxxx. 4. ' Gen. ii. 17. 



44 Origin of the belief in a future state 

rents immediately after the fall. Soon after this 
time, tliere occurs in the sacred narrative a very 
important event, which yields the strongest confir- 
mation to the argument which is here maintained. 

Cain and Abel, having each presented an oblation 
to God, we are informed that the former rose up 
against the latter and slew him. The motive which 
instigated the murderer is thus explained: " The 
" Lord had respect unto Abel and to his offering : 
" but unto Cain and to his offering he had not re- 
" spect^." " Wherefore slew he him ? Because his 
" own works were evil, and his brother's right- 
" eous^." It is further to be observed, according 
to the writer to the Hebrews, that the faith of the 
one was the reason of his being accepted, and the 
want of it in the other the cause of his rejection. 
" By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent 
" sacrifice than Cain^\" Now faith must be under- 
stood to denote a disposition of mind actuated by a 
firm reliance on the divine blessing promised to obe- 
dience. Less than this cannot be adequate to the 
meaning of the term. It must have been under the 
influence of this sentiment that he had been able to 
perform an acceptable homage to his Maker. 

What feelings^ then, must have been excited in 
the bosoms of the first parents of mankind by this 
tragical occurrence? when they beheld their son 
carried off by a premature death, in consequence 
of an act, which was acceptable to God, which had 
been performed in submissive conformity to his will, 
and with a confident reliance on his protection and 
blessing. Nothing l)ut the belief in a future state 

' Gen. iv. 4, .>. :^ 1 ,)ohii iii. 12. '' Heb. xi, \. 



amo7ig mankind in general. 45 

could have placed the transaction in a light con- 
sistent with what they knew respecting the perfec- 
tions of the Supreme Being. Had they viewed it 
apart from the prospect of retribution in another 
life, the dreadful calamity must have led to conclu- 
sions still more distressing than the event itself. It 
must have induced a conclusion, that a conformity 
to the will of God is of no avail towards conciliat- 
ing his favour ; that final destruction would be the 
probable consequence of devotion to his service; 
that God is not the rewarder of them that diligently 
seek him ; and that there is no reward for the right- 
eous. On such a view of the subject, the fear and 
service of God must have been at an end : religion 
and virtue must have become totally extinct among 
men : wickedness and injustice must have obtained 
an universal dominion. That this result did not ac- 
tually follow, can be explained only by supposing, 
that the belief in a future retribution was entertain- 
ed by our first parents. On this subject the lan- 
guage of Tillotson is equally forcible and just, and 
the argument expressed in it seems to be irresisti- 
ble. " If," says he, " the immortality of the soul 
"and a future state be not supposed and taken for 
" granted in this story, this very passage is enough 
" to cut the sinews and pluck up the roots of all 
** religion. For if there were no rewards after this 
" life, it were obvious for every man to argue from 
" this story, that it was a dangerous thing to please 
" God^" Before we dismiss this topic, it is im- 
portant to remark, that the considerations now 

i Vol. iii. Senn. CXXIII. folio. 1712. 



46 Origin of the belief in a future state 

stated, clearly indicative as they are of a future 
state, are found in connexion with the very first 
infliction^ of death upon man. So early do we 
trace the operation of that gracious plan for our re- 
covery from death, which the Gospel has revealed ! 
The earliest case of mortality among our species is 
so recorded, that if it did not itself generate the 
belief in a future state, at least it supplies the clear- 
est evidence that such belief must have been enter- 
tained at the time of its occurrence. The grace of 
God has supplied an antidote to the malady from 
the very commencement of its desolating ravages. 

If it be said, that the foregoing considerations do 
not amount to any distinct revelation of a future 
state, this may be allowed. But it must, at the 
same time, be contended, that the transactions to 
which we have referred, are totally irreconcileable 
with the supposition that the prospect of that state 
was not afforded. 

We therefore infer, that the hope and expectation 
of a future state was granted to our first parents, 
and that the extensive prevalence of that doctrine 
in subsequent times was derived from this primary 
communication. On this supposition, the cause and 
effect will appear duly proportioned to each other. 
And this mode of accounting for the universal re- 
ception of this doctrine must appear more reason- 
able, than that which supposes it to spring from the 
natural sense and reason of mankind. For if we 
calculate the powers of human reason from a cor- 

' See Graves's Lectures on the four last books of the Penta- 
leucli, part iii. Lert. \\\ 



among mankind in general. 47 

rect knowledge of its unassisted performances, we 
shall have no warrant for supposing it capable of 
any such sublime discovery as the immortality and 
future responsibility of man. 

Thus far our reasonings apply in common to the 
inhabitants of the antediluvian world, and to the 
later posterity of Adam. But before we come to 
the era of Noah, the second founder of the human 
race, another remarkable event presents itself wdth 
strong claims to ou» attention. This event must 
have been gi^eatly adapted to strengthen the belief 
in a future state. It must, indeed, have been per- 
fectly unaccountable to the minds of men in that 
age, if such belief was not entertained by them. 

III. " And Enoch walked with God : and he was 
" not ; for God took him^." 

" By faith Enoch was translated that he should 
" not see death ; and was not found, because God 
" had translated him : for before his translation he 
" had this testimony, that he pleased God. But 
" without faith it is impossible to please him : for 
" he that cometh to God must believe that he is, 
" and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently 
" seek him^." 

From the brief record and accompanying decla- 
rations contained in the foregoing passages, we are 
warranted in deducing some very important conclu- 
sions. 

In the first place, it is not easy to furnish a con- 
sistent exposition of the term faith, as it is here 
employed, if we do not suppose it to embrace the 

^ Genesis v. 24. ' Hebrews xi. 5, 6. 



48 Origin of the belief in a f attire state 

the conviction of a future state. Enoch walked 
with God, because lie believed that God is the re- 
warder of them that diligently seek him. Could he 
then have expected the reward of obedience in the 
present life ? This supposition is hardly reconcile- 
able with the knowledge and experience, both of 
which he must have had, of the malediction which 
had been pronounced on the human race. It is 
equally irreconcileable with the malediction which 
had been pronounced upon the earth : since that 
must have conveyed an implied assurance, that the 
rewards of obedience were not, according to the in- 
tention of him who uttered the condemnatory sen- 
tence, to be of a terrestrial nature. " Cursed is the 
" ground for thy sake ; in sorrow shalt thou eat of 
" it all the days of thy life ; thorns also and thistles 
" shall it bring forth to thee"\" We therefore con- 
clude, that the obedience of Enoch was stimulated 
by the prospect, not of a present, but of a future 
retribution. 

But secondly, if such were the faith of Enoch, it 
must also have been the general faith of the age in 
which he lived. It must, for the reasons already 
alleged in application to him, have been the faith of 
all who believed that God is the rewarder of them 
that dihgently seek him. Besides, both he and his 
contemporaries must have derived the knowledge of 
a future state from a common source of instruction. 
For Enoch was, during nearly the whole of his 
earthly period, contemporary with Adam : by whom, 
as we have seen, a future state must have been be- 

'" Gentiii. 17, 18. 



among mankind in geyieral. 49 

lieved. Now Adam would naturally be the reli- 
gious instructor of his children and posterity. We 
therefore conclude, that the doctrine of a future 
state was, in Enoch's time, a current and generally 
received doctrine of the religion then prevailing in 
the world. 

In saying this, I shall not be understood to mean, 
that it was embraced by the rest of mankind with 
equal sincerity, or with the same practical influence. 
We have reason to believe that the wickedness of 
man had, in the days of Enoch, risen to a prodi- 
gious height. This vidll appear probable from the 
character he sustained, as a preacher of repentance • 
and from the tenor of his prophetic denunciations", 
which se^m to bear witness to an extreme corrup- 
tion and obduracy in those to v/hom he was sent. 
The probability is increased when we reflect, that 
the period of his translation had witnessed the 
commencement of that generation respecting whom 
it is said, " God saw that the wickedness of man 
" was great in the earth, and that every imagination 
" of the thoughts of his heart was only evil conti- 
" nuallyo." Such being the case, the doctrine of a 

« Jiide 14, 15. 

" Gen. vi. 5. See a sermon of Dr. Clagett's on the translation 
of Enoch ; from which I also extract the following words : " The 
*' world, though it was yet in its youth and vigour, was grow^n old 
" enough for men to forget their Creator, and to abandon them- 
*' selves, for the most part, to a voluptuous and dissolute life : and 
" that this is no uncertain conjecture, appears from hence, that 
*' Enoch was translated but 69 years before Noah was born, in 
" whose time mankind was grown to such an intolerable degree 
"' of licentiousness, that God sent the flood to sweep all away but 

E 



50 Origin of the belief in a future state 

future state cannot have been generally cherished 
among them with much regard. It must still, how- 
ever, have been a doctrine of the religion generally 
received and professed. If Enoch's faith in a fu- 
ture state was more firm and vigorous than that of 
others, the distinction may justly be regarded as a 
favour vouchsafed by God to the superior sanctity 
of his life : since an entire devotion to God's service 
is not only a requisite qualification for the reception 
of religious truth, but also a condition on which the 
knowledge of such truth is promised?. The indul- 
gence of sin darkens the spiritual frame of man^. 
Where there is not a willingness to obey, the proper 
foundation of a religious faith is wanting : and hu- 
man depravity will ever recoil from the entertain- 
ment of doctrines, which thwart the evil propensi- 
ties of the heart, and disturb their gratification by 
unwelcome prospects of retribution and justice. 
And if, on the other hand, in his contemporaries, 
this faith was languid and wavering, or even ex- 

" eight persons. Now it is not to be thought, that the world was 
" overspread Avith such monstrous vices all of a sudden, but that 
*' after the manner of all human degeneracy, corruption of man- 
" ners, and of principles too, came on by degrees, and conse- 
" quently that in Enoch's time, who was translated little less than 
" a thousand years after the creation, there was a very great de- 
" cay of piety and virtue every where," &c. 

I' " If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine 
" whether it be of God." John vii. 17. A^upea r] It^aa-KaAia. fq; 

Beoa-c^ticic; '^ufl<i Ze rj ttKTTn;. DOIOTNTES yap to deXi^f^a tov &€0v, to 

B(KfiiAu riNnSKOMEN. Clem. Alex. I. 7. 

1 V^TTiTKorovo-iv al uaff^eicci 7:poi; to fjifj ^vvatrOai opav tov &(qv. Theopli. 
ad Autol, I. 2. MI ixoxO'/jpia Ziacrrp€(f)€i i<ai Zia.(f)6€ip(i xvyv diavoiav. 
Arist, Eth. ad Nirom. lib. vi. 



among mankind in general. 51 

tinct, this also would naturally result from the pre- 
dominance of those dispositions which are desig- 
nated by the apostle " an evil heart of unbelief^/' 
But as a professed principle of religion, it seems 
reasonable to suppose, that he held it only in 
common with the rest of the world : as, indeed^ in 
every age of God's church, there have been mul- 
titudes maintaining a public profession of religion, 
over whom its motives and sanctions have had little 
power in regulating the internal movements of the 
soul. 

But though we should admit, that the general 
corruption of mankind in Enoch's time may have 
induced a practical disbelief of a future state ; that 
this doctrine had become, in many of his contem- 
poraries, a dormant principle ; and that by others it 
had been avowedly rejected : still the doctrine itself 
must have gained augmented evidence, and have 
been armed with a more awakening conviction, 
from the supernatural manner of that patriarch's 
removal out of this world. 

There are only two ways in which the design of 
Enoch's translation can justly be viewed. It must 
either have been limited to the benefit of that in- 
dividual, or else it must have had an extended re- 
gard to the general welfare of mankind. 

The former view is subject to very considerable 
objections. For, in the first place, we are not war- 
ranted in supposing that a miraculous interposition 
of Providence would take place, without important 
reasons for suspending the ordinary course of its 

' Heb. iii. 12. 
E 3 



52 Origin of the belief ifi a future state 

proceedings. And yet, if we think that the reward 
of personal obedience was the only end contemplated 
in this appointment, it will appear, that this end 
might have been fully attained without any depar- 
ture from that established and general law, by which 
the wisdom of God hath deferred to a future life 
the reward of virtue. The joys of immortality 
would certainly have been Enoch's portion, even 
though he, like other faithful servants of God in all 
ages, had passed through the gates of death into the 
celestial paradise : and these joys would have far 
outweighed the pangs and struggles of the dying 
hour. The pains of death would have been to him 
the less severe by reason of his innocent conscience 
and his undoubting faith : and, certainly, the omni- 
potence of God might, in the felicities of heaven, 
have more than counterbalanced those sufferings of 
temporal death from which he was thus exempted. 

Secondly, Let us regard those general principles 
by which the divine proceedings are regulated in 
the infliction of death on our fallen race. We can 
discover in Enoch nothing, which, consistently with 
these principles, could furnish a ground of exemp- 
tion from the common doom. Great, indeed, and 
exalted must that piety have been, which was ho- 
noured by such a splendid testimony of the divine 
approbation. But a general law had passed, which 
subjected all men to the temporal dominion of 
death ^ : and this law, if we regard the principle on 



* " Publica totius generis humuni sententia mortem naturte de- 
bitum pronunciamus. Hoc stipulata est Dei vox, hoc spopondit 
omne quod naseitur." Tertnllianus de Auima, c. .50. So strong- 



among mankind in general. 53 

which it was founded, applied to Enoch as well as 
to others. " By one man sin entered into the world, 
" and death by sin ; and so death passed upon all 
" men, for that all have sinned ^" To triumph over 
death is a privilege annexed by the divine mercy 
to faith and obedience : but the most transcendent 
heights of virtue to which man can rise, are nowhere 
permitted to hope for the enjoyment of the triumph 
without first enduring the sting. Enoch, in com- 
mon with his brethren, participated in the defile- 
ment of a sinful nature. His obedience, though 
more sincere than that of others, would still fall far 
short of that perfect and undeviating conformity to 
the will of God, which alone could qualify him to be 
exempted from the operation of the general law. 

The circumstances connected with the removal of 
Enoch and Elijah to a better world, were particu- 
larly adapted, and the more so by the rarity of their 
occurrence, to engage the notice and admiration of 
the world. It cannot be imagined that they would 
have been selected as the subjects of so remarkable 
a distinction, had they not been fitted, by an eminent 
sincerity of faith and integrity of life, to be thus 
held forth to their contemporaries and posterity. It 
may be, they pleased God and wrought righteous- 
ness beyond any who lived in their times. Or, if 

ly does this writer insist upon the principle thus laid down in its 
application to our present subject, that he draws from it a very 
wild and extravagant inference. " Translatus est Enoch et He- 
" lias, nee mors eorum reperta est, dilata scilicet. Ceterum mo- 
" rlturi reservantur, ut Antichristum sanguine suo extinguanW 

Ibid. 

t Rom. V. 12. 

E 3 



54 Origin of the belief in a future state 

their piety did not surpass that of all other men in 
their respective generations, we may reasonably be- 
lieve that it was, from the circumstances of their 
situation, more conspicuous than that of others : 
and thus, the extraordinary manner of their depar- 
ture out of this world would be the more exem- 
plary, and the more subservient to general edifica- 
tion. But because they were thus distinguished, 
that they must therefore have surpassed in goodness 
all on whom the general sentence of mortality was 
allowed to take effect : this is an inference wholly 
unwarrantable. There is no ground for attributing 
to Ehjah, who was taken up alive into heaven, a 
degree of sanctity superior to that of John the 
Baptist, who was beheaded in prison ; and to whom, 
by reason of the resemblance in the virtues and cha- 
racters of the two prophets, the name of the former 
is scripturally applied. Enoch walked with God, 
and was translated that he should not see death. 
Others also have walked with God and have been 
distinguished objects of his favour ; but tliey have 
been selected to seal the faith with their blood, and 
to glorify God by enduring the agonies of martyr- 
dom. Now concerning these last, we are taught by 
the word of infallible truth, that it was the tendency 
of their afflictions to work for them a far more ex- 
ceeding and eternal weight of glory". 

It was not then properly, or chiefly, with a de- 
sign of rewarding the personal righteousness of 
P^noch, that lie was translated, while in the body, 
into the company of celestial spirits ; but it was 

" 2 Cor. iv. 1 7. 



among manhind in general. 55 

done with a view to the general instruction and in- 
terests of mankind. Agreeably to this view, he 
appears to be correctly described in the Book of 
Ecclesiasticus, as "^ an example of repentance to all 
'' generations^." His case, and that of the martyr, 
are alike the appointments of a wise and merciful 
Providence, and may be reasonably considered as 
having been ordained with the same design ; name- 
ly, that of promoting the reign of godliness upon 
earth and of furthering the salvation of men. The 
one is chosen as a signal instance, for the general 
instruction and encouragement, of the divine appro- 
bation afforded to a virtuous life : the other is ap- 
pointed, by the sufferance of death and torture, to 
yield an attestation to the truth of that faith which 
is the way of sanctification and eternal bliss. Both, 
we conceive, are properly to be viewed in connexion 
with the provisions of Divine Wisdom for the ge- 
neral welfare of the human race, and not with any 
restricted application to the qualities of individuals. 

The present life is not the appointed season for 
the reward of virtue. Hence then we have reason 
to believe, that, had the design of Providence in the 
translation of Enoch been limited to his individual 
case, he, after the manner of other men, would have 
been admitted to his reward after his day of trial 
had been terminated by death. This, indeed, ge- 
nerally speaking, seems almost necessary in order 
to complete and perfect the appointed warfare of 
faith : since the approach of death is the severest 
trial which humanity has to sustain ; an hour which 

■^ Ecclus. xliv. 16'. 
E 4 



56 Origin of the belief in a future state 

calls forth the utmost exertion of our virtues, and 
puts most fully to the test our love of God and re- 
signation to his will. " Virtus nunquam nisi morte 
*' finitur," says Lactantius, " quoniam et in morte 
'* suscipienda summum ejus officium esty." 

We therefore conclude, that the translation of 
Enoch was intended to afford to mankind a convic- 
tion that there is another world after this, and to 
strengthen the belief in a future retribution, at a 
time when religion stood in need of every support 
which it could obtain. 

This conviction it was well adapted to establish. 
For, on the one hand, low as mankind may have 
been sunk in folly and depravity, they could never 
entertain so absurd a notion of the retributive 
justice of God, as to suppose, that it would be li- 
mited in its operation to a solitary case. And 
again, with regard to the mode of its operation, 
they could not find, either in those principles of 
true religion which still lingered among them, or in 
their own experience and observation, any sanction 
for believing, that the divine justice would manifest 
itself in rewarding the piety of all good men after 
the manner of Enoch's reward. The only justifi- 
able inference then would be, that man was des- 
tined for another life ; and that an exception had 
been made from the general law for the sake of giv- 
ing to the world a manifest ground of conviction 
that he was so. 

Such are the arguments in favour of a future 
state arising from the scriptural records of the ante- 

>• Div. Inst. vii. 10. 



J 



among mankind in general. 57 

diluvian world. Hence we would infer, that this 
doctrine must have been the general belief of man- 
kind before the flood. If the doctrine itself were 
not gathered from the transactions which have been 
brought under consideration, it must at least be al- 
lowed, that the views of those transactions which 
must necessarily have occurred to the minds of men, 
could never, on the supposition of any religion what- 
ever existing among them^ be reconciled with a dis- 
belief of it. The belief is therefore implied in these 
transactions, if the doctrine itself be not proved by 
them. The doctrine thus entertained would be con- 
veyed to Noah, the second father of mankind, and 
by him would be handed down to his posterity. 
Hence, we conceive, originated the wide diffusion of 
a doctrine, which in later ages spread itself so ex- 
tensively among the various families of mankind, 
that scarcely a nation can be found among whom it 
was not entertained. 

It must not however be forgotten^ as we have 
already hinted, that in order to the propagation of 
this important truth, peculiar methods may have 
been employed by the Supreme Wisdom, of which 
no information has been conveyed to us. Of such 
possible methods there is one which, with a view to 
the general illustration of this remark, we will briefly 
notice. 

That the dead have sometimes been restored to 
life, is an undoubted truth of revelation. While we 
acknowledge the purposes contemplated in these su- 
pernatural acts of divine power to be agreeable to 
that supreme and perfect wisdom by which they 
were ordained, why should it be thought unworthy 



58 Origin of the belief in a future state 

of the same wisdom, to permit that the departed 
soul, after quitthig its fleshly tabernacle, should oc- 
casionally hold communication with men? Thus 
may have been afforded a sensible proof of future 
existence, together with an instruction, founded on 
experience, respecting the final issue attendant upon 
the conduct of men in their probationary state. 

Reflect on the general belief in such communica- 
tions which has pervaded every region of the in- 
habited world : and surely we may, without indulg- 
ing an unreasonable credulity, allow it to be possi- 
ble, that even the vulgar tales of popular supersti- 
tion may have had their first foundation in reality 
and fact. Without such an admission, the existence 
of fiction and imposture with relation to such nar- 
ratives is hardly capable of a rational explanation. 
It is thus we argue with regard to other instances 
of forgery. Pretended miracles and pretended pro- 
phecies are justly regarded as affording their evi- 
dence, that some miracles have been actually per- 
formed, and that some prophecies are authentic and 
divine. Impostures and cheats are commonly con- 
sidered as imitations of something real ^. And with 

''' Kai Toi/TO Se hoKH y.oi u)cn:ep eirt 'nccvrav Setv TrapocriOevcci, on oirov ri 
yjeipov irpoa-Ttoiovfxevov eivai ofxoyev€(; ra /cpeiTTovi, €K€i iravrox; €K tov evavriov 
eari Ti Kpemov' ovtco Kai €%i rcov Kara yo'rjreiav eitiTtkovvTav, on 'nocvroiq 
avajK-fj iivai Kui ccko Oeiaq evepyeiai; €v ru i3ia <ytvo/>t,eya. Origenes contra 

Celsum, ii. 5 1 . So also the general principle is laid down by 
bishop Law : though the particular application of it to this sub- 
ject militates against the peculiar doctrine maintained by that 
prelate respecting the soul. ** Not to insist upon the numberless 
" traditions of supernatural appearances, and the common belief 
'* of them all over the world ; which notion can hardly be sup- 
" posed to iiavc arisen at first willionl ffjuiulation, though num- 



i 



among mankind in general, 59 

good reason : because we cannot conceive, by what in- 
let the very notion on which the imposture is found- 
ed can have gained its first admission into the mind, 
unless it had been introduced by an antecedent re- 
ality. The pretensions of the necromantic art are of 
very ancient date, and yield a strong presumption 
of such reality: for on what ground can we imagine 
those pretensions to have been established, unless 
the minds of men had been previously familiarized 
to the conception of an intercourse with departed 
spirits ? And again, how could the conception itself 
have existed in the mind, unless it had been pri- 
marily derived from reality and truth ? It deserves 
consideration whether the petition of the rich man 
in the parable may not be considered as indicating a 
traditionary evidence of that, for the possibility of 
which we contend. " I pray thee therefore, father, 
" that thou wouldest send him to my father's house : 
" for I have five brethren ; that he may testify unto 
" them, lest they also come into this place of tor- 
" ment^." Now if we suppose such an intercourse 
to have been afforded by Providence to the earlier 
generations of mankind, this of itself will go far 
towards explaining the universality of that belief 
of which we are investigating the origin. 

To have passed over this topic in silence would 

" berless impostures (which yet are ever imitations of something 
" real, and almost a natural consequence of it) have indeed ren- 
'* dered all reports of that kind, for these many ages, very suspi- 
^' cious." Considerations on the Theory of Religion, p. 7(1. ed. 
1765. See also Gray's Key to the Old Testament and Apocrypha 
on 2 Mace. p. 680. ed. 1822. 
^ Luke xvi. 27, 28. 



60 Origin of the belief in a future state 

have been hardly consistent with a proper deference 
to those many writers of distinguished name, by 
whom the greatest stress has been laid upon it as a 
clear proof of the immortality of the souP. It will 
readily occur, that if such communications were af- 
forded under the dim obscurity belonging to the 
early periods of revelation, they must, agreeably to 
the foregoing view, be less needful under a dispen- 
sation which has brought life and immortality to 
light. Lastly, it is to be remembered, that these 
remarks are not introduced for the purpose of con- 
tending, as matter of fact, for the actual employ- 
ment of this specific mode of instruction ; but merely 
as an illustration of the general possibihty, that cer- 
tain methods of teaching a future state may have 
been employed, of which no notice has been con- 
veyed to us. 

To the supposition of such possibility the silence 
of Scripture is no valid objection. For had the Pen- 
tateuch contained any narratives or details of this 
character, the information thus afforded might have 
had an influence and effect on the minds of the 
Israelites similar to those, which, as we have endea- 
voured to shew, would have resulted from the pre- 
mature introduction of those promises which pecu- 
liarly and exclusively belong to the evangelical co- 
venant. They would then have been provided in 
the book of their Law with a satisfactory assur- 
ance, little short of a covenant promise, on which 
to estabhsh the hope of immortal life : having this, 
they would probably have been disposed to look no 

'^ Sec the Supplementary Remarks. 



among mankind in general. 61 

further, and thus the Gospel would have been treated 
with neglect and disdain. Whereas, the writings 
of Moses, framed as they are with such a strik- 
ing reserve in regard to this most interesting of 
all subjects, wore upon the face of them the strong- 
est characteristic feature of an imperfect and pro- 
gressive scheme, destined to receive addition and 
completion when the fulness of the time should 
come. Thus were they well adapted to prepare the 
minds of men for an ulterior declaration of mercy, 
and for embracing with gratitude the offer of life 
and immortality which the Gospel explicitly reveals. 

But whatever may be thought of the foregoing 
reasoning, we still retain the undisputed fact, that 
the doctrine of a future state has been found inter- 
woven with every variety of character belonging to 
the religious systems of the Gentile world : of the 
whole world, I should have said, but for the alleged 
exception of which we are trying the validity. Such 
a very extensive prevalence cannot, on Christian or 
rational principles, be otherwise explained, than as 
originating in the providential appointment of God, 
and in those methods of instruction which his wis- 
dom may have chosen to employ. One general 
ground for this inference has been already stated. 
But the conclusion will gain additional evidence, 
if we will only consider the various sources from 
which this doctrine may possibly have been de- 
rived. There are, if I mistake not, but two with 
which we are at present concerned. Some will 
contend that it was a discoverv of reason ; others, 



62! Origm of the belief in a future state 

of revelation^. It will be our business then to exa- 
mine and adjust their conflicting pretensions. If 
in the issue it shall appear that those of the former 
are plainly untenable, revelation must then be al- 
lowed to vindicate its just prerogative of being con- 
sidered the only admissible source of its derivation. 

The question then immediately before us is, Whe- 
ther the doctrine of future rewards and punishments 
can justly be regarded as a discovery of human rea- 
son? 

Now if the resurrection of the body be viewed 
as constituting a part of this doctrine, then the 
question is at once decided : since those who most 
delight in magnifying the natural endowments of 
man, have never asserted the resurrection to be one 
of those truths which lie within their grasp ^\ 

Let the doctrine, however, be viewed as discon- 



"^ A third supposition is that of priestcraft or state-policy. 
Thus Bayle expresses it in the following passage ; in which, how- 
ever, the present inequalities of Providence are greatly overstated : 
*' It is evident enough, that in this life good actions do not lead 
*' to temporal happiness, and that bad ones are the most common 
** and surest means of raising one's fortune : to prevent men 
*' therefore from plunging themselves into vice, and to lead them 
" to virtue, it would have been necessary to propose to them pu- 
•' nishments and rewards after this life. Thi'i is the craft, which 
''free-thinkers impute to those whom they pretend to have been 
"■ the first inventors of religion.'" Bayle's Dictionary', Art. Spinoza. 
Rem. E. But this is plainly foreign to our present argument, in 
which the truth of Scripture is supposed, 

^ '* As to a resurrection, it was e\er looked upon [by the philo- 
*' sophers] as an article incredible and impossible." Ellis's In- 
quiry, whence cometh Wisdom and Understanding to Man, p. 542. 



among mankind in general. 63 

nected with this adjunct : which, nevertheless, ac- 
cording to the Christian scheme, essentially adheres 
to it. We will, then, contemplate the spiritual part 
of our frame as alone subject to the joys and mi- 
series of future existence : and now, viewing the 
doctrine in this restricted shape, we are to inquire, 
whether the knowledge of it could have been ob- 
tained through the medium of rational investiga- 
tion. 

Here the first point which calls for examination 
is, whether reason, by any exertion of its native and 
unassisted energies, could have discovered in the hu- 
man soul a capacity of future reward and punish- 
ment. In order to this, it must first be proved, that 
the soul is capable of existing after the dissolution 
of the gross corporeal integument with which we 
now find it to be united. But the possibility of 
this separate existence seems, according to the more 
prevailing opinion, to be wholly inadmissible, un- 
less there be first established a conviction of its im- 
materiality. 

Now we contend, that the immateriality of the 
soul cannot possibly be deduced from any knowledge 
that we possess respecting it; from any observa- 
tions that we are capable of making ; or from any 
considerations which we are competent to frame. 
In proof of this proposition, I will exhibit a brief 
summary of the reasoning pursued by an excellent 

" The resurrection of the body is what no force of human wis- 
" dom could have discovered." Id. Knowledge of Divine Things, 
p. 261. ed. 1811. See also the language of Celsus quoted by 
Origen, v. 14. where it is spoken of as a thing both contrary to the 
will, and exceeding the power, of God. 



64 Origin of the belief in a future state 

writer, who has treated this important subject in a 
forcible and convincing manner^. 

" There can no reason be assigned why man, if 
** you regard him in the imassisted exercise of his 
" natural powers, should imagine himself to be a 
** compounded being. He • is conscious, indeed, of 
" thoughts and emotions arising within himself: 
*' but why should he not suppose these to be occa- 
" sioned by the peculiar temperament and organic 
"* structure of his body ? Why should he recur to a 
" separate and distinct principle in explanation of 
** their origin ? The spiritual and corporeal parts of 
•* our nature are, so far as we may judge from our 
** present condition, inseparable : they never act 
" asunder : they would therefore never occur to him 
" as distinct objects of contemplation. But let it 
** be supposed that he was capable of framing to 
*' himself certain abstracted arguments to prove, 
" that reasoning and volition are the operations of 
" an invisible and incomprehensible substance with- 
" in him ; yet one sound sleep would for ever de- 
" stroy such a notion. For he would then perceive, 
" that when the body is at rest, these operations are 
" at rest also. Nay, the body breathes and is in 
*' motion, when the other part is in a state of death, 
" when all its ideas and impressions are quite ob- 
" literated. Again, it is waked with the body ; and 
*' its perception is at all times but one act, and the 
** act of the whole man. Nor could he ever form 
*' the least conception, how spirit can govern or act 

'- Dr. Kllis. See his Knowledge of Divine Things, p. \\K\. el 
seqq. 



among mankind in general, ^^ 

" upon matter, nor how spirit and matter can be vi- 
*' tally united together. 

" By what clue of abstracted reasoning must he 
" search for demonstrations by which to judge of 
" immateriality ? How is he to discover the essence, 
" operations, and acts, of substances distinct from 
" body? How shall he obtain a discernment of aerial 
" subtle spirits and intelligences ? He has no guide 
" but his senses, nor can he possibly believe what 
" contradicts them : every thing that he sees, or 
" feels, or hears, produces an impression repugnant 
" to the notion of immateriality. 

" To this question a short answer may suffice : 
" the whole is an impossibility. An uninstructed 
" person can have no inlet or conveyance of know- 
" ledge but by sensation, and nothing is evident to 
" the senses but matter : he therefore never could 
" produce immateriality out of matter. Nothing 
" can be made out of materials but what such ma- 
" terials afford. You cannot by any internal opera- 
" tions or powers elicit the notion of spirituality 
" from that which is altogether corporeal. 

"Before a man could any way infer, that the in- 
" strument of thought must necessarily be immate- 
" rial, he must know what are the essential attri- 
" butes of body and spirit : he must clearly under- 
" stand in what motion, action, life, self-activity, cogi- 
" tation, intellection, volition, internal energy, in- 
" divisibility, and extension, consist ; as also, what 
" are the modes and accidents of a substance. He 
" must then discover the principle and root of life 
" and cogitation, so as to distinguish between what 
" is essentially vital and intellectual, and what is 

F 



66 Origin of the belief in a future state 

" not : he must ascertain the true and only cause 
" of thought, so as to be satisfied that it cannot pro- 
" ceed from any combination of matter : he must 
" be able to reconcile immateriality and substanti- 
" ality together : in fine, he must become acquaint- 
" ed with numberless other abstract ideas, before he 
" can have any adequate conception of the soul. 
" And, when all this is done, he will still be unable 
" to form a judgment respecting its immateriality. 
" You may say with confidence : No mechanism, 
" matter, or motion, however modified, can produce 
" life or thought ; therefore thinking is a proof of 
" an immaterial soul. But if we believe Mr. Locke ^, 
" the proposition on which this conclusion depends, 
" is unsupported by due evidence. Nor is it any 
" contradiction to suppose, that the first eternal 
" thinking being or omnipotent spirit should, if he 
" pleased, give to certain systems of created sense- 
" less matter, put together as he thinks fit, some 
" degrees of sense, perception, and thought. 

" If you define the soul to be a thinking being, 
" this will serve to distinguish it from other bodies, 
" but will not prove it to be immaterial^. You can- 
" not prove the impossibility of thought and exten- 
" sion subsisting in the same thing : for you cannot, 

' " Essay on Human Understanding, b. iv. c. 3. §. 6." 
K So it was argued by Tertullian for the purpose of proving 
the corporeity of the soul : '* Quum animae corpus adserimus pro- 
*' prido qualitatis et sui generis : jam haec conditio proprietatis de 
*' ceteris accidentibus corpulentiae pr3?judicavit, ut haec adesse, qua 
•• corpus ostendamus, sed ct ipsa sui generis pro corporis proprie- 
" tate; aut etsi non adsint, hoc esse proprietatis, nan adesse cor- 
" pori anima: qu/E corporibus et ceteris adsint." De Anima, c. 9. 



among mankind in general. 67 

" on the other hand, conceive how any thing but 
" impulse of body can move body, how thought and 
" will can give a determination to matter, or how 
" an immaterial soul can move a lifeless and sense- 
" less body. 

" They who have exercised their thoughts most 
" intensely on this matter have been forced to ac- 
" knowledge, that our faculties are incapable of ar- 
" riving at any demonstrative certainty respecting 
" the immateriality of the soul^. It seems to be a 
" point beyond the reach of our knowledge. He 
** who will give himself the trouble of considering 
" the matter fully, and of looking impartially into 
" the dark and intricate part of each hypothesis, 
" will scarcely find his reason competent to any 
" fixed determination for or against the soul's im- 
" materiality. On which soever side he views it, 
" whether as an unextended substance, or as a 
" thinking extended matter, the difficulty of con- 
" ceiving either, while either is alone in his thoughts, 
" will continually drive him to the contrary side. 
" Both opinions are to us inexplicable and beyond 
" our comprehension." 

Such is the essential difficulty which obstructs the 
proof of the soul's immateriality : which, in the ge- 
neral apprehension of mankind, will be esteemed a 
necessary basis on which to establish the possibility of 
its separate existence. But should it even be granted, 
that this point is ascertainable by man under the light 
of nature ; he has still, in the process of unassisted 
reason, a further difficulty, and one of equal magni- 

^ •' Locke's Essay, iit supra." 
F 2 



68 07ngin of the helief in a future state 

tude,to struggle with, before he can establish the proof 
of its immortality as a consequence of the former. 
Respecting which also, I will insert the substance of 
the reasoning employed by the writer to whom I 
have just referred. " Whether it can be solidly 
" proved from reason, ought to be doubted ; since 
" hitherto it has not been done. Nor is it possi- 
" ble for nature to prove more than this : Though 
" the body perish, there is no actual necessity that 
" soul perish also. But no uninstructed person, 
" from any observation he could make on the death 
" either of brutes or of men, could have the least 
" ground to imagine a separate existence of any 
" part of them. He sees life extinguished, the whole 
" man perish, and all operations cease : and thence 
" to argue that some part of him survives, lives, and 
*^ operates, would be a most absurd and vain in- 
" ference. Let it be granted that man, by the light 
" of nature, has discovered within himself a be- 
" ing separate from body : yet how could he distin- 
" guish between his own soul and that of other 
** animals? His proofs of immateriality in favour 
" of himself would equally apply to them. And 
" therefore, as he sees both men and brutes fall 
" into corruption after death, his most natural con- 
" elusion would be, that death puts an end to the 
" existence of both^" 

But the notion of a substance strictly immaterial 
is confessedly attended with considerable difficulty 
of apprehension'^. The disciple of Reason might 

■' Ellis's Knowledge, &c. pp. 388, 390. 

^ " Mens n\ill() corpore : quod intelligi, quale sit, vix potest." 
Cir. Arad. Qtifcst. iv. 39. See the last cliapter of I\iley's Evidences. 



among mankind iii general, 69 

therefore, after examining the nature of the soul, 
possibly come to a conclusion that it was ma- 
terial. In this case a different path of demonstra- 
tion must have been followed in order to the proof 
of its immortality : and a difficulty, greatly aug- 
mented, would occur, in the attempt to gain a con- 
viction, that one material substance was exempted 
from the common fate which subjected all others to 
dissolution and decay. The materiality of the soul 
was held by many of the ancient philosophers, the 
Epicureans, for instance, and the Stoics : but they 
maintained also that which seems to be a neces- 
sary consequence of this doctrine, namely, that it 
would cease to exist. It was held also by some 
of the early Christian writers^: but their opinions 
respecting its future existence were framed agree- 
ably to this tenet. Here was consistency in both 
cases. But to imagine that unassisted reason should 

^ Tertullian and Arnobius. Of these, TertuUian mamtahis 
that its immortality can be known only by revelation from God- 
De Anima, c. 1 . Arnobius says, that the soul is by nature mor- 
tal, and that its exemption from death is owing solely to the sus- 
taining act of God. Adv. Gen. ii. 14, 30. et seqq. Tatian is 
reckoned by Warburton, but I think with insufficient evidence,, 
among those who held the materiality of the soul. Div. Leg.lxiii. 
§. 4. vol. iii. p. 158. If he did, he likewise was consistent, since 
he maintained that the souls of the wicked become extinct at the 
death of the body, and return to life with it at the resurrection ; 
while those of the good are sustained after death by the divine 
power. This, at least, appears to be his meaning, which is stated 
with some httle perplexity. Cont. Graec. c. 21, 24. Justin Martyr 
also, and Theophilus of Antioch, did not believe the natural and 
essential immortality of the soul. The statement of these vari- 
ous opinions may help to illustrate the difficulty, or rather impos- 
sibility, the existence of which is here contended for. 

F 3 



70 Origin of the belief in a future state 

conduct man to a belief that the soul was at the 
same time both corporeal and imperishable, is an 
absurdity at which the judgment of every candid 
person must revolt. 

The following reasoning from the admirable writer 
whom we have lately quoted seems perfectly irre- 
sistible. " The divine power and goodness are the 
*^ only stability of things. By them were all created 
" beings brought into existence, and by them do 
" they enjoy a continuance of it. Whether there- 
" fore they shall be annihilated, or retain a per- 
" manence through all eternity, must depend wholly 
" on the will of God : and as to what he will do, 
" that can be learned only from revelation^." It 
seems impossible indeed to maintain the immortality 
of the soul as a truth of rational discovery, unless 
we deny at the same time the power of the Deity to 
cause its extinction. For if the Deity have that 
power, we can have no assurance, except what is 
derived from his own communications, that he will 
not employ it. 

" Scholars may reason," says Sherlock, " of the 
" nature of the soul and the condition of it when se- 
" parated from the body ; but the common hopes 
" of nature receive no support from any such in- 
" quiries^"." Such are our grounds for maintaining, 
that the immortality of the soul is a truth not to 
be gathered from any observation of its natural and 
inherent qualities, nor from any reasonings that we 
are able to frame respecting them. 

' Ellis's Inquiry, &c. p. 542. 

"' Disc. II. p. 61. vol. i. Oxford, 1812. 



among mankind in general. 71 

But the necessity of future rewards and punish- 
ments (which obviously imply the future existence 
of the soul) is often insisted upon, as a truth de- 
ducible by natural reason from the moral attributes 
and moral government of the Deity. The validity 
of this inference must therefore be examined: in 
order to which we will take a previous view of the 
argument through which it is obtained, as we find 
it stated in the words of a writer by whom, among 
numberless others, that argument is employed. 

" Religion establishing a Providence, the rewarder 
" of virtue, and the punisher of vice, men naturally 
" expect to find the constant and univocal marks of 
" such an administration. But the history of man- 
" kind, nay even of every one's own neighbourhood, 
" would soon inform the most in diligent observer, 
" that the affairs of men wear a face of great ir- 
" regularity : the scene, that ever and anon pre- 
" sents itself, being of distressed virtue, and prosper- 
" ous wickedness ; which unavoidably brings the 
" embarrassed religionist to the necessity of giving 
" up his belief, or finding out the solution of these 
" untoward appearances. His first reflection might 
" perhaps be with the poet^ : 

" ' Omnia rebar 
' Consilio firmata Dei ; qui lege moveri 
' Sidera, qui fruges diverse tempore nasci,— - 
' Sed cum res hominum tanta caligine volvi 
* Adspicerem, laetosque diu florere nocentes, 
' Vexarique pios, rursus labefacta cadbbat 

' RELIGIO.' 

n " Claudian." 

F 4 



72 Origm of the belief hi a future state 

" But, on second thoughts. Reason, that, from the 
" admh-able frame and harmony of the material 
" universe, taught him that there must needs be a 
"superintending Providence, to influence that order 
" which all its parts preserve, for the sake of the 
" Whole, in their continued revolutions, would soon 
" instruct him in the absurdity of supposing, that 
" the same care did not extend to man, a creature 
" of a far nobler nature than the most considerable 
" of inanimate beings. And therefore human af- 
" fairs not being dispensed, at present, agreeably to 
" that superintendence, he must conclude, that man 
" shall exist after death, and be brought to a future 
" reckoning in another life, where all accounts will 
" be set even, and all the present obscurities and 
** perplexities in the ways of Providence unfolded 
" and explained. From hence Religion acquires re- 
" sistless force and splendour ; and rises on a solid 
" and unshaken basis^." 

To the same effect observes this writer in another 
place : " When it came to be seen, that God was 
" not always a Rewarder and a Punisher here^ men 
" necessarily concluded, from his moral attributes, 
" that he would be so, hereafter : and consequently, 
" that this life was but a small portion of the hu- 
*' man duration?." 

Again : *^ It is by the moral attributes, we learn, 
" that man was made for happiness : and that God's 
" dispensation to us here is but part of a general 

'^' ^^''arbul•toll's Divine Legation, book i. sect. 2. vol. i. p. 218. 
P Id, ibid, book v. Append, vol. v. p. 227. 



among mankind in general. 73 

" system : This naturally extends our views to, and 
" terminates our knowledge in, Futurity ^^ 

Let us now try the solidity of this firm and un- 
shaken basis, and examine whether it possess a 
strength and firmness sufiicient to support the weight 
of structure which is raised upon it. If I mistake 
not, it will prove in the result a different basis from 
that which the apostle requires : " Other foundation 
" can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus 
" Christ^" 

It is necessary, however, to premise, that by the 
moral attributes of God, no other attributes are here 
to be understood than those of justice and good- 
ness. This is aU that is here assumed as the basis 
of proof: it is all that is insisted upon by this dis- 
tingiushed prelate as necessary to the establishment 
of a future retribution, in opposition to Bolingbroke, 
who endeavours to infer the falsehood of that doctrine 
from the denial of those attributes^ : lastly, it is all 
that the champion of human reason can equitably 
demand as the groundwork of demonstration. For 
it is plain (as wdll be seen hereafter) that any fur- 
ther knowledge respecting the moral attributes of 
the Deity must have been unattainable "v^ithout re- 
velation. 

To proceed. When, among those promiscuous 
dispensations which now characterize the providen- 
tial government of the world, wickedness is beheld 



^ Warburton's Divine Legation, book ii. Append, vol. ii. p. 218. 
' 1 Cor. iii. 11. 

' See a few pages immediately following the last reference to 
Warburton. 



74 Origin of the belief in a future state 

to flourish prosperous and triumphant to the end of 
life ; then, if the moral attributes of God be firmly 
believed, reason has doubtless a strong ground for 
calculating on a future retribution. Thus far the 
conclusion is inevitable : but how far does it ex- 
tend? Certainly no farther than to establish the 
prospect of a future punishment to the wicked. 
But how the reason of man, wholly unenlightened 
from above, can establish on such considerations the 
proof of a future reward, is quite inexplicable. In 
order to the completion of this proof, it cannot em- 
ploy any principles but such as revelation hath as- 
sured us to be false. Can reason discover in man 
any pretensions of merit as the foundation of hope 
in a future life ? Can it convey to man any assur- 
ance that his virtue is entitled to claim a reward 
from the justice of God? Reason never can have 
taught a principle like this, since the principle itself 
is false. A future state of reward for the righteous 
is the free gift of God obtained for mankind by the 
sacrifice of Christ.- If then our natural . faculties 
could never discover the ground on which a state 
of future happiness is offered to mankind ; (and it is 
plain that they could not ;) then neither could they 
have discovered the certainty of that state itself. 
While redemption was a mystery, eternal life must, 
to the unassisted mind of man, have been so like- 
wise. 

The degrees of wickedness prevaihng in this 
world are indeed different. Natural reason might 
therefore, from contemplating the moral attributes 
of God together with the inequality of his present 
dispensations, derive a just expectation, that the pe- 



among mankind in general, 75 

nalties of sin hereafter would differ according to 
its differing gradations here. This consideration 
would warrant an inference respecting the cer- 
tainty of future punishments and the equitable dis- 
tribution of them ; but it would avail no further. 
For all men have sinned and fallen short of the 
glory of God. The wages of sin is death. In 
many things we all offend. Our best obedience is 
but very partial and imperfect. And yet the voice 
of revelation declares, " Whosoever shall keep the 
" whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is 
" guilty of all*." This may seem a stern declara- 
tion. Yet Reason must needs acquiesce in it : since 
it cannot be denied, that every transgression of the 
law, whether great or small, equally sets at nought 
the authority of the lawgiver^, who is also the dis- 
penser of rewards and punishments. Thus impossi- 
ble is it, that man^ on any true principles, could rea- 
son himself into a belief that he was qualified for 
any reward from his Maker on the terms oi justice. 
And as to goodness, that, considered in itself, does 
not extend its regard beyond the innocent and un- 
offending. The hope then of transgressors, with re- 
gard to a future life, must be established on another 
attribute which revelation only can discover. They 
must contemplate their Maker as a merciful God, 
and ready to pardon. 

The light of nature can afford no warrant for a 
hope that God will be merciful to man in the award 



^ James ii. 10. 

" To 7ap 67ri /AiKpoiq KUi jxeyaKoii; 7rapaj/(5/>ce<v lao^vvarov ea-ri' 81' iKCcre- 
pov yap voy.oq oixoiut; v'ir(pif}(pa,veirai. Josephus de Maccabaeis, C. 5. 



76 0?'igin of the belief in a future state 

of a future life. If the contrary be asserted, how 
can you explain the different conditions of sinful 
men and of apostate angels^? To the former an 
offer of pardon is made : but the latter are reserved 
in chains of everlasting darkness. Reason and na- 
ture, it is contended, might supply arguments suffi- 
ciently conclusive for the forgiveness of the one : 
why are not those arguments equally conclusive in 
regard to the other ? In the latter application of 
them they are manifestly false. They must, then, 
be so in their application to the former. The 
salvation of man, depending as it does solely upon 
God who worketh all things after the counsel of 
his own will, could be known only by those dis- 
coveries which he may have been pleased to make, 
and not by any speculations which we are competent 
to frame. We therefore conclude, in the words of 
a great divine, that " natural religion can neither 
" give us any certain clear security of a future life, 
" nor means to attain it^." 

Such is the " firm and unshaken basis" which 
natural religion affords for the establishment of our 
hopes respecting a future life. Let every man take 
heed that he buildeth not thereon. 

But while we are thus confuting the pretensions 
of human reason on general and abstract principles, 
we have, if I mistake not, the more satisfactory 
evidence of historical testimony to warrant the con- 
clusion we desire to establish. 

^ Sec P^llis's Knowled^'c, he. j). 422. et secjq. 
y Abj). King's Sermon on the Fall of Man, p. 8J. Camb. 1739. 
See also Conybcarc's Dcf. of Rev, Kcligion^ p. 1 ifi. ed. 1732. 



among mankind in general, 77 

We are informed by Cicero, that Pherecydes was 
the earliest philosopher upon record who taught the 
immortality of the souP. That is to say, he was 
the earliest who taught it as a philosophical doc- 
trine^ : since it is plain, even by the declaration of 
Cicero himself, that it had been universally^ enter- 
tained in the belief of mankind, from the very infancy 
of our species^. This doctrine was afterwards strenu- 



^ Tusc. Disp. I. 16. 

^ This explanation of the words of Cicero is agreeable to 
Brucker, though the observation of that learned writer applies 
primarily to Thales, who is by some considered as the earliest 
philosophical teacher of this doctrine. It will be seen however 
by the following quotation to be equally applicable to Pherecydes. 
*' Animam esse immortalem, primum dixisse Thaletem asseruit 
" Choerilus poeta. Nee dubium est, Thaletem dogma per omnem 
*' antiquitatem celeberrimum et inter ^gyptios sacrum ex^gypto 
" retulisse, Graecieeque W07Z tarn intulisse primum, quam adjecisse sys- 
*' temati philosophico, quod immortalitatem animce postulabat. Unde 
** frustra disceptari putamus, an Thales vel Pherecydes primus fu- 
" erit, qui inter Grsecos immortalitatem animae docuerit ? Ante 
*' utrumque enim inter Grsecos dogma hoc a barbaris, Thrace Or- 
" pheo, et ex ^Egypto allatum viguisse, theogonise fidem faciunt, 
" quae illud involvunt. Ab his edoctus philosophorum uterque no- 
" bilissimam doctrinam servaverunt, et de ea philosophati sunt, 
" Pherecydes in Syro insula, Thales Mileti in Ionia." Hist. Phil, 
vol. i. p. 475'. See the Supplementary Remarks. 

^ Tusc Disp. I. 16. " Permanere animos arbitramur consensu 
" omnium nationum." So also, c. 13. the universal belief of this 
doctrine compared to that respecting the existence of a God. 

^ Ibid. I. 12. " Auctoribus quidem ad istam sententiam quam 
" vis obtineri, uti optimis possumus : quod in omnibus causis et 
*' debet et solet valere plurimum : et primum quidem om7ii ayiti- 
" quitate ; quae quo propius aherat ah ortu et dlvina progenie, hoc 
" melius ea fortasse, quae erant vera, cernebat. Itaque unum illud 
'* erat insitum priscis illis, quos Cascos appellat Ennius, esse in 



78 Origin of the belief in a future state 

ously maintained by Pythagoras, the disciple of Phe- 
recydes, and thus became a professed tenet of the 
Pythagorean school. But, he adds, it was the ge- 
neral practice of those early sages to assign no rea- 
sons for the doctrines which they taught^. Here 
then is a plain declaration from a competent autho- 
rity, that the universal reception of this doctrine 
among mankind was far more ancient than any 
reasonings which have been advanced in its sup- 
port. 

What follows is more especially remarkable. Hav- 
ing related that Plato made himself thoroughly ac- 
quainted with the system of Pythagoras, and adopt- 
ed his opinion respecting the soul, Cicero proceeds 
to inform us, that this last named philosopher was 
the first who adduced reasons in proof of its im- 
mortality^. Now the immortality of the soul form- 
ing an essential part of the doctrine of a future 
state ; (as must have been the case with those to 
whom the idea of a bodily resurrection was wholly 
unknown ;) that doctrine could never subsist with- 
out it. Hence then we discern the lateness of the 
period, at which the first efPort was made to demon- 
strate upon rational principles, that which some main- 
tain to have been an original discovery of r,eason : but 

" morte sensum, neque excessu vitce sic deleri hominem, ut funditus 
" interiret.'' 

'^ Ibid. I. 17. " Rationem illi sententiae suae non fere redde- 
*' bant, nisi quid erat numeris aut descriptionibus explicandum." 

« Ibid. I. 17. " Platonem ferunt, ut Pythagoreos cognosceret, 
*' in Italiam venisse, et didicisse Pythagorea omnia, primumque 
" de aninioruni aeternitate non solum sensisse idem, quod Pytha- 
•' goram, sod rationes etiam attulisse,'* 



among mankind in general, 79 

which in fact had subsisted in the universal and 
implicit belief of mankind for ages before any such 
attempt was made. 

A just and safe criterion of the powers of reason 
has thus presented itself. Its competence to the 
discovery of this important truth may now be esti- 
mated, not by any abstract measures and . calcula- 
tions of its strength, but by its actual performances : 
of what it can do, we may judge by what it has 
done. 

Plato was not only the first who endeavoured to 
prove the immortality of the soul : he is also re- 
garded as the most distinguished patron of this doc- 
trine of which pagan philosophy can boast. By so 
great a master of reason and language, we may be 
assured that the subject would be treated with every 
advantage which it could derive from the brightest 
splendour of eloquence and the keenest talents for 
disputation. Thus far the trial will be favourable 
to those who vindicate the dignity of human rea- 
son : in another respect it will be equally so to the 
cause of truth. For this great philosopher hav- 
ing led the way in exploring the certainty of a fu- 
ture state by the clue of demonstration ; it must be 
plain that, in such a case, the efforts of reason having 
no bias oif assistance from any anterior or external 
source, the degree of their success must afford the 
safest guide to an estimate of its capacity. 

With a view to the decision of this question, our 
attention will naturally be directed to that beautiful 
production ^ which its author has professedly and 

f The Phaedon. 



80 0?ighi of the belief hi a future state 

almost exclusively dedicated to the proof of the 
soul's immortality. Let us then proceed to a brief 
examination of its merits. 

If you desire the chaste and elegant graces of 
Athenian composition ; if you would indulge the 
flow of tenderness over a deeply pathetic scene ; if 
you would admire the talents of a writer in select- 
ing and arranging the circumstances of a story, so 
as to give to his discourse the most imposing effect : 
of such pleasures the Phaedon of Plato is eminently 
fruitful. But if you seek for substantial useful- 
ness and truth ; if you demand the grounds of con- 
viction on a matter of supreme interest ; if you 
want a solid foundation for your hope beyond the 
grave : you must go to other sources for the satis- 
faction you require. Of this celebrated production 
it may be truly said, that, viewed as an argumenta- 
tive discourse,its predominating ingredients consist of 
bad metaphysics and wretched quibbling. Through- 
out the whole of it, little is offered which furnishes 
any reasonable ground for a belief in the separate 
existence of the soul. As to the few topics selected, 
and the arguments framed upon them, for that pur- 
pose, so remote are they from the grasp of common 
apprehensions, that they can never, without flagrant 
absurdity, be regarded as having supplted an ade- 
quate cause of general conviction, or a probable 
basis for the widely prevailing expectations of man- 
kind. Socrates is here represented as maintaining 
the eternal existence of the soul antecedent to its 
union with the body. He describes it also as des- 
tined, after death, to migrate into another animal 
body, and to possess an everlasting duration : the 



among mankind in general, 81 

proper notion of such migrations implying, according 
to the Platonic system, a successive repetition of 
them. From the necessity of these migrations, how- 
ever, an exemption is made in favour of those souls, 
which, during their conjunction with the body, are 
purified by philosophy: these are at once exalted to 
perfect and endless felicity in the society of the gods, 
and never return to any corporeal dwelling. This 
purification is not, however, to be confounded with 
any sublime attainments in private and social virtue; 
but consists, according to the doctrine which Plato 
here maintains, in a philosophical resistance to the 
appetites of nature, together with the observance of 
a mental discipline framed agreeably to his own fa- 
natical doctrine of ideas ^. On the other hand, those 
who, during their former Hfe, have contracted the 
guilt of very enormous wickedness, are excluded 
from the benefit of such migrations; being reserved 
in a state of separate existence as the subjects of 
everlasting punishment and despair. The views 
chiefly insisted upon are wholly inconsistent with 
the retention of conscious identity throughout the 
various changes of condition to which the soul is in- 
troduced : though it must naturally occur to us, 
that if the surviving spirit be stripped of this attri- 
bute, the doctrine of immortality is nothing better 

^ This purification is described, cc. 32, 33, 34. ed. Forster, and 
is plainly distinguished from the moral virtues ; though we must 
believe, that in the contemplation of Plato, the latter are supposed 
to subsist in union with it. These virtues, (ra(f)poa-vv'^ and ^kuio- 
avvfi, (under one or the other of which every species of moral rec- 
titude is comprehended) are rewarded with an infinitely lower de- 
gree of happiness, c. 3 1 . 

G 



82 Origin of the belief in a future state 

than a bubble filled with the breath of a metaphysi- 
cian^. The future happiness or misery of the soul is 
so accounted for, as to appear determined by physi- 
cal tendencies ' rather than by the moral government 
of a righteous judge. Wq grant indeed, that a judg- 
ment is at one time asserted, and a moral retribution 
is described ^ : we are however to recollect, that in 

^' So it is represented by an adversary to this doctrine : 

" Nam si tantopere est animi mutata potestas, 
** Omnis ut actarum exciderit retinentia rerum : 
'• Non, ut opinor, id ab letho jam longiter errat." 

Lucretius, iii. Q73. 

To the same effect are the following remarks of Athenseus : the 
design of which is, to illustrate the slender claim of Plato to 
the glory with which the common opinion of mankind has in- 
vested his name in regard to the immortality of the soul, and 
the real mischief accruing from the views of that doctrine, which 
he maintained under the pretence of demonstrating its truth : 
ITepi 8e rav ev itok; hiccXoyoit; avrov },e'Keyf/.ivav, ri av kui Xeyoi Tiq ; 'H 
jixej/ yap 4'^xri '/) tiUivXaTroixey/] aOavaToq lir' avTOV, Kai kcctcx. ttjv a-noXv- 
aiv ')(^afiiCpy,ev'fj rov (rufAxroi, irapa. Ttpara eip'/jrai '0[jt.'/]p^' ovroq yap enrev, 
u^ yj Tov TlaTpoKXov "^vyjq 

'Ov "noTfAov yooacra, KiTCOvcr' d'bporrjra Kai ^jSijv. 

El S' ovv, Kai IlAaTccvoq, (pvja-eiei/ Tiq, eivai TON AOFON* cv^ (S/joj, rtv' e(7%>;- 
Kaix€V a'n avrov ucjjcAeiav. Eav yap Kai dvy^cop'fjcrr} ti<;, i^iSKTratrBai raq tccv 
T€Ti'AiVTfjKOTuv i//f%a? €k; aAAaq (pvtreK;, Kai Ttpoq tov [/.ereapoTepoi/ Kai Ka- 
6a,pcor€pw avepx^adai tottqv, are KOvcboTYjroq [xeTe^ova-aq, ti itXeov rjfAiv ; 'ON 
TAP MHT' ANAMNH2I2 E2TIN OT DOTE HMEN, MHT' A120H2I2 
EI KAI TO 2TN0A0N HMEN, TI2 XAPI2 TATTH2 TH2 A0ANA- 
2IA2;" Deipnosop. xi. 117. ed. Schweighaeuser. 

' Thus, the readmission of the soul into another body, under 
the influence of the habits contracted during the former life, is de- 
scribed after the following manner : wo-xe raxv nillTEIN ei<; a'AKo 
(TUfAu, Kui wa-'jrep SHEIPOMENH EM*TE20AI. C. 33. See also c. 30. 

^ C. 62. 



among mankind in general. 83 

this case, the alleged grounds of belief are tradi- 
tional^, and arise not from the abstract operations 
of that faculty, the extent of whose powers we are at 
present considering. But let us take a distinct view 
of some of the leading arguments and principles 
which occur in this treatise. " The senses, the wants, 
" the passions^ the diseases, and other affections, of 
" the body, interrupt and embarrass the exercise of 
'* the mental powers. Now, the more the soul is ab- 
" stracted from this corporeal influence, the better it 
" performs those contemplative functions which are 
" peculiar and appropriate to its nature. It will 
" therefore perform these functions best when whol- 
" ly separated from the body by death '^.^ Again : 



' 'O? eyw vTto rivQi; riEIlTSMAI. c. 58. These words occur at the 
beginning of the narrati^^e in which the passage referred to is con- 
tained. Forster proposes to read TreTrejc-.aat ; but the variation is 
perfectly immaterial. 

^ C. 9 — 12. There is, it must be owned, something spe- 
cious in this. We cannot however, consistently vi'ith the true 
principles of revelation, attach any considerable value to it. For 
these principles teach us to expect, that after the present 
mortal frame shall have been clothed with immortality at the 
resurrection, the soul will possess an everlasting duration in con- 
junction with the body : whereas the Platonic argument con- 
veys the notion of a separation from it, as most agreeable to the 
nature, and best suited to the liberty and happiness of the soul. 
Cicero, though not for the purpose of contradicting the inference 
of Plato, has given a very different representation of the same to- 
pic ; which is however, abstractedly considered, equally plausible : 
" Animorum est ea vis, eaque natura, ut vigeant vigilantes, nuUo 
*' adventicio pulsu, sed suo motu, incredibili quadam celeritate. 
** Hi cum sustinentur membris, et corpore, et sensibus, omnia cer- 
" tiora cernunt, cogitafit, sentiunt. Cum autem hcec subtracta sunty 
" desertusque animus languore corporis, turn agitatur ipse per sese. 

G 2 



84 Origin of the belief in a future state 

" Substances are of two kinds : they are either com- 
*' pounded and visible, or uncompounded and invisi- 
*' ble. Liability to perish belongs only to the former 
" class ; but the soul is of the latter : therefore it is 
" imperishable. The soul, as far as we can ascertain 
" its qualities, appears to be of an unchangeable na- 
*' ture, exempt from all perturbation, except that 
** which ai'ises from its union with the body and the 
" exercise of its functions on sensible objects. It is the 
" office of the soul to rule the body, and of the body 
" to obey the soul : the former of which is the attri- 
" bute of a divine essence, the latter of a perishable 
" being. We cannot then suppose that the soul, pos- 
** sessing as it does all these properties of an impe- 
** rishable substance, will be immediately dissipated 
" and sink into nonexistence at death. This will ap- 
" pear the more unreasonable when you consider, 
" that even the body, after the separation of the 
" soul from it in death, has some degree of perma- 
" nence before its parts are decomposed ; and some 
" of these parts, such as the bones, have even a long 
** extended duration "." These may be considered as 
the very pith and essence of the treatise : they are 
the most plausible attempts at rational deduction 
which it contains. Some arguments of a different 
nature are however advanced with strong expres- 
sions of confidence in their value. The following 
is an instance : " All things, to which there exists 
" a contrary, are produced out of a state contrary 
" to their present existence : thus the state of 

*♦ Itaque in co et Jormce versantur et actiones : et viulta audiri, 
♦• multa did videntur." De Div. ii. G7. 
" C. 25—29. 



among mankind in general. 85 

" being awake is produced out of sleep, and the lat- 
" ter again out of the former ; so also, cold is a 
" change from heat, and heat from cold. Now the 
" contrary to death is life. Therefore, as death is 
" produced out of life, so must life out of death. 
'' There must therefore be a revival of the animal 
" being. The soul therefore must exist separately 
" in order to the possibility of this revival ^." To 
find an intellect ready to acquiesce in this kind of 
ratiocination would perhaps be no very easy task : it 
looks more like a metaphysical trap than a candid 
appeal to sobriety and reason. Such as it is, it can 
avail only in support of the Platonic transmigration, 
but has no relation to that kind of immortality of 
which we desire the proof p. This transmigration is 
described in the following manner : '* The state of 
" the soul after death will be determined by its oc- 
" cupations and pursuits during life. It will pass 
** into the body of some animal whose natural pro- 
" pensities are similar to those which it indulged 
" when united with the body. Thus the souls of 
" men who have exercised the political virtues will 
" pass into the bodies of bees, ants, wasps, or per- 
" haps of other men ; the tyrant will be changed 
"into a wolf; the voluptuary will reappear in the 

° C. 15—17. 

p Tertullian thus exposes it : " Et nos opponemus contrarieta- 
'* tes nati et innati, visualitatis et caecitatis, juventae et senectae, 
" sapientiae et insipientise. Nee tamen ideo innatum de nato pro- 
*' venire, quia contrarium ex contrario fiat. Nee visualitatem 
*' iterum ex caecitate, quia de visualitate eaecitas accidat : nee ju- 
" ventam rursus de senecta reviviseere, quia ex juventa seneeta 
'* marceseat : nee insipientiam ex sapientia denuo obtendi, quia 
** ex insipientia sapientia acuatur." De Anima, c. 29. 

G 3 



86 Orighi of the belief in a future state 

*' form of an ass. But those souls only which have 
^* been purified by philosophy will be changed into 
" a divine nature, and admitted among the gods ^." 
We will take one more example of the reasonings 
pursued in this dialogue. " That which, being su- 
'' peradded to something else, produces an effect con- 
*' trary to the nature of that to which it is applied, 
" can never be itself subject to an effect contrary to 
" that which it thus produces. Now the soul, being 
" superadded to an organized lifeless body, produces 
" life. The soul therefore cannot be subject to death, 
"for that is an effect contrary to life. In other 
'^ words, it is immortal ^." This is advanced in all 
the form and pretension of irresistible proof. There is 
nothing throughout the whole disquisition on which 
greater stress is laid. Before we close our review, 
we should not omit to observe with regard to the 
prominent character in this discussion, that he is 
represented at one time influenced by the utmost 
weakness of vulgar superstition ^ ; and at another, as 
having his mind bewildered by verbal ambiguities and 
frivolous distinctions of language, which are suited 
only to the exposure and ridicule of a child*. The 
concluding part of the dialogue displays a wild and 

n C. 29—32. 

>■ C. 52 — ^^. The same argument is more intelligibly stated 
by Xenoplion thus : " 1 never can believe that the soul lives only 
'• when united to a mortal body, and dies when it is separated 
" from it : for I observe, that even our mortal bodies, as long as 
" the soul dwells in them, are thereby caused to live." Owoi cycoye, w 

9j, ^ij* orav §e tovtov aitaXXay^y teOvtiKiv. Opu yccp qti kooi to. Bvfira, gu- 
(jutTooy odov av €V avToi<; -/jpovav tj ^ i^fX*?, ^wvra 7ra/3e;^€Tat. Cyrop. viii. 
» C. 35. t C. 49, 50. 



among manhind in general. 87 

visionary theory respecting the structure of the earth, 
which is introduced for the purpose of describing 
those conditions and abodes which are separately ap- 
pointed for disembodied souls. 

On the whole, the scene to which you are intro- 
duced in this dialogue is deeply impressive and 
awful ; and the conversation you hear in the person 
of Socrates commands the strongest interest in your 
feelings. You cannot but admire the great martyr 
of philosophy in his calm and dignified retreat from 
the present life ; his virtue rising superior to the 
most appalling discouragements ; his resolution un- 
shaken by the rude assaults of power and malice, 
undaunted by the dark prison and the poisonous 
draught, unaffected by the violent dissolution of the 
most endearing ties^ at a time when those ties must 
have been felt in the utmost force of tender emotion 
excited by the presence of those around him. You 
cannot withhold your respect, when, amidst so many 
disheartening circumstances, you observe him, with 
an unbroken spirit and an undisturbed serenity, 
inculcating on his companions a steadfast adherence 
to rectitude and a sense of the supreme importance 
of the soul. But all that he suggests is little avail- 
able for the conviction of your understanding or the 
assurance of your hopes : and the best improvement 
which you can gather from it is, to feel the natural 
darkness of the human mind, to confess the want of 
divine illumination, and to be thankful to the Fa- 
ther of mercies and the God of all comfort, who, in 
raising Jesus from the dead, hath afforded to all men 
a proof of immortality, alike suited to the nature of 
their faculties and the satisfaction of their desires. 

G 4 



88 Origin of the belief in a future state 

If it be said to the praise of philosophy, that the 
arguments we have now reviewed, such as they are, 
were sufficient to support the fortitude of Socrates in 
a trying hour, to produce an heroic display of in- 
trepid courage, and a magnanimous contempt for 
death ; this can by no means be admitted. For 
we have the utmost reason to believe, that the deep 
interest and lustre of the scene we have contem- 
plated, may have been more indebted to the talent 
than to the fidelity of the painter ; the obligation of 
truth being systematically excluded from the mo- 
rality of Plato ^ : and though the fortitude of So- 
crates were even great as it is represented, yet it 
sprung not from those considerations which are here 
ascribed to him ^. The reasonings we have ex- 
amined are those of Plato, not of Socrates ^. Far 

" The justice of this charge cannot be questioned, if we con- 
sider the nature of the double doctrine, which was observed by 
Plato, and which is founded on the principle, that public utility 
and truth are incompatible with each other, and that the former 
ought to be preferred as the object of those discourses which are 
intended for popular instruction. The principle is thus laid down 
by Synesius, who, though a bishop, is much better authority in 
regard to Platonism than Christianity : NOT2 MEN OTN $IAO- 
20<I»02 EnOnTH2 ON T' AAH0OT2, STrXOPEI TH XPEIA TOT 
'^J'ETAESOAI. avaXayov yap €crTi (pcoq lipoq aXTjBeiav, Kai OfA,[A,a, -rtpoq hr)- 
uov. 'H< ovv ocb6aXfjiO(; eiq KaKOv av aTcoKccvirenv airX'/jarov (puroi;, Kai vj 
roiq 0(l)9aX[xiu<7i to ct/coto.; ox^eAi/xwrepov* rocvrri i<ai TO '4''ETA02 0<I»EA02 
EINAI T10EMAI AHMO, Kai ^Ka^epov ttjv aX'/jOeiav TOig om icrxvova-iv 
(vaTevio-at icpoq rrjv ruv ovrcov ^vapyeiav. — A'/j[ACf> yap S17 Kai (piko(TO(pia:,, 
T» 'npoq ahXrika ; THN MEN AAHOEIAN TON OEION AHOPPHTON 
EINAI AEI- TO AE nAH0O2 'ETEPAS 'ESEaS AEITAI. Ep. 105. 
For the conduct of Plato in regard to this principle see Warbur- 
ton, Div. Leg. iii. §. 2. vol. iii. p. 21. et §. 3. p. 88. 

^ See the Supj)l. Rem. 
"Ad theologian! Socratis naturalem nierito referimus quoque 



among mankind in general. 89 

from being the reflections of a dying man, they 
are undeniably those of a mind at ease, indulging all 
the wantonness of philosophic leisure. 

Our attention must not however be limited to the 
single treatise which we have just examined : the 
nature of our present design requiring a general 
statement of the evidence adduced by Plato in proof 
of a future state. There are other parts of his writ- 
ings in which a different line of reasoning is pur- 
sued for this purpose. Thus, the following argu- 
ment is y particularly extolled by Cicero for the 
uncommon refinement and elegance of its texture : 
" Every soul is immortal. For that which is ever 

** doctrinam de anima : de qua multa quidem pro Socraticis nobis 
" vendidit Plato. — Veruni et hie quoque Pythagorica cum So- 
'' craticis mire commiscuit, et conturhavit omnia Plato. Nam quae 
*' de praeexistentia animarum, ideis, et amissa ante conjunctione 
*' cum corpore scientia, in Phaedone disputat, Italicae scholse decre- 
** ta sunt, non Socraticse, quae in his nugis non consensit." Bruck- 
er's Hist. Phil. vol. i. p. 563. That Plato was, on general sub- 
jects, guilty of falsifying the character and sayings of Socrates, 
appears from the testimony of Diogenes Laertius, in vita Plat. §. 
35. et Socratis, ii. §. 45. as also from Athenaeus. L. xi. cc. 113. 
et 116. The testimony of the latter is also express vi^ith regard 
to that particular dialogue which relates the death of Socrates : 
since Phaedon, by whom the narrative of that event is delivered 
in the dialogue of Plato, is said to have declared, that he never 
either himself related, or heard from Socrates, the remarks 
which are under his name attributed by Plato to Socrates. Ibid, 
c. 113. (See theSuppl. Rem.) Diogenes Laertius informs us, that 
Socrates was one of four persons, under the names of whom Plato 
was accustomed to deliver his own sentiments. In vita Plat. §. 52. 
A learned and ingenious writer appears therefore to have made no 
inconsiderable mistake when he says, that *' Plato's admired dia- 
" logues are but corrected transcripts of what passed in the aca- 
'* demy." Blackwell's Inq. into the Life and Writings of Homer, 
y Tusc. Qusest. i.23. 



90 Origin of the belief in a future state 

" moving is immortal : whereas that which moves 
" another thing, and is moved by another thing, has 
" a cessation of life when it has a cessation of mo- 
" tion. Wherefore, that only which moves itself, 
" inasmuch as it cannot abandon itself, can never 
" cease to move ; but moreover this is the spring 
" and beginning of motion to all other things which 
" are moved. Now the beginning must be un- 
" created : for every thing which is created must 
'' have sprung from the beginning, but the beginning 
" itself from nothing. For if the beginning sprung 
" from any thing, it would not be the beginning ^. 
*^ And inasmuch as it is uncreated, it must also be 
" imperishable. For if the beginning be destroyed, 
" neither will itself be produced from any thing, nor 
" any thing from it, since all things must take their 
" rise from the beginning, We therefore conclude, 
" that that which moves itself must be the be- 
" ginning of motion. This can neither be liable to 
*' perish, nor can it have been created : otherwise 

^ According to the present reading, " it would not he from the 
'^ beginning, ES ap%>j?:" a form of words to which, in combina- 
tion with what goes before, it is not easy to affix a meaning. The 
text is however manifestly depraved, as appears not only from its 
being unintelligible, but also from the translation of Cicero^, which 
is perfectly coherent with the context, and which runs thus ; 
" Nee enim esset principium quod gigneretiir aliunde." We must 
therefore suppose the original to have stood thus : E< yap €k tov 
apx^ yiyvono, ovk av APXH yiyvono. The occurrence of the words e| 
apx^? SO shortly before may naturally have led to the mistake in 
which the j)resent depravation consists. The emendation is the 
more certain, because the writings of Cicero contain two different 
versions of this passage from Plato, (Tusc. Disp. ut sup. et Somn. 
Scip. viii.) which, though they vary in other minute particulars, 
agree together as to this point. 



among mankind in general. 91 

'* both all the heavens and all the earth would 
" collapse into one motionless body, and could never 
" again receive an impulse which might be to them 
" the cause of motion ^. Now since it has been 
*' made to appear, that that which is moved by itself 
" is immortal, we need not fear to say that this 
*' very thing is the essence and reason of the soul. 

^ The present reading is, kui /XTjTroTe avBn; €%6tv 2THNAI hOey kivvj- 
devra -yev'/jceTa* ; that is, " and would never be able to regain a 
" position from which they might be moved." But here again the 
text is plainly vitiated by the repetition of (TTTjvat after an in- 
terval of four words : that word giving to the passage a meaning 
which is contrary to the design of Plato and at variance with the 
translation of Cicero. The whole passage stands thus in the Bi- 
pont edition : Ilaa-a, ipi^%vj, aOavaroi;. to yap aeiKiv/jTov, a6a,yaroy' to S' 
aXXo Kivovy, Kai vii dKkov KH/ovjAevov, itavXav e^ov Kiv/jcreat;, TcavXcc:/ t^ei. 
'^avji;. f^ovov S'/j to avro kivovv, are ovk aT^oAentoy iavro, oviaore Xrjyei Ktvov 
{/.ivov, aXKix, KOii roiq ccXKok; cxra Kivenai, tovto TtTjyT] Kai ap%'/j Kivqcreoo^. 
apyjfi Se, ayevrjTOv. eg a/5%>J? yoop avayK'/j irav to yiyvof^evov yiyveaSai, 
avTvjy Se ^>jS' ef ivoi;. €< yap €K rov ccp^vj yiyvoiro, ovk av ec, ocpxqq yiyvono. 
eireiSvj Se ay&it\toy ea-ri, Kai a,'bia(j)6opov avTO ocvayKV) eivai. ap'/^qq yap 8^ 
aitoKay.ev'fii;, ovt6 aurvj ttotc €k tov, ovre aXXo e^ eKeivriq yevficre-rai' €i%€p e| 
apxi<; Sf* I'a iravra yiyvetrOai. otra ^i^ Kir^treaq [/.iv apx^, to a^'TO kivovv. 
TOVTO he ovT aitoXXva-6ai ovt€ yiyvea-Qai dvvaToV tj Travra t€ ovpavov, Ttacrav 
T€ -yvjv (TVf/.'netrQva-ay (TT'rji/aif Kai [/.y}%GT€ avBi<; eyjeiv crTi^vai odev KivrjOeyTa 
yevvjcreTai. aOavaTov Be 'r:€(f)a(r(/,€vov rov v(f)' iavrov KivovfAevov, t^y%ifj? ov- 
(Tiav re Kai Xoyov tovto avro rii; Xeyav ovk ai<T%vvei.Tai. 'nav yap aaua a 
[Aev e^ccOev to Kiveia-Qai, aypv)(fiV a> Se evboBev avro e| avrovj efAxl/v^ov' aq rav- 
Tvj; ov(T'/}(; (pvo-eco<; ypv^'tjc;. et S' ecTTi touto ovtcck; 6%ov, fji'/j aXXo n eivai to 
avro avro kivovv, tj r//i^%>jv" eq avayKti^ ayevffcov re Kai aBavarov ypvy^i/} av 
elr,. Platonis Opp. Phaedr. vol. x. p. 313. I would only observe, 
with regard to the above reasoning, that it is nothing more than a 
contemptible sophism, effected by employing one term in a two- 
fold signification : the word APXH being used to denote two dif- 
ferent things, namely, the beginning of motion in the corporeal 
frame of an individual, and the beginning of motion in the uni- 
verse. Thus the first spring of action in animal life is con- 
founded with the First Eternal Cause of all things. 



92 Origin of the belief in a future state 

" For every bodily substance which derives its motion 
" from an external cause is inanimate, or void of a 
" soul ; and every bodily substance which is moved 
" internally from itself is animate, or endued with a 
" soul : for this self-moving power is the nature of 
" the soul. And if this be the case, that the self- 
" moving substance is nothing else than a soul, then 
" the soul must needs be both uncreated and im- 
" mortal." 

Here, we perceive, the essential attributes of di- 
vine perfection are ascribed to the souls of men : 
we may add, of brutes also ; for the professed opi- 
nions of Plato require that he should be so under- 
stood. Of such reasoning the merits cannot be bet- 
ter stated than in the language of Warburton ; who 
thus expresses a manly and proper indignation, not 
only at the argument itself, but also at the conduct 
of those modern theologians by whom it has been 
honoured with the suffrage of their approbation : 
" It is so big with impiety and nonsense, that one 
" would wonder how any Christian divine could 
" have the indiscretion to recommend it as doing 
" credit to ancient philosophy ; or to extol the in- 
** ventors and espousers of it, as having delivered 
" and entertained ver]i just, rational, and proper 
" notions concerning the immortality of the human 
" soul^." 

Perhaps the nearest approach to truth afforded us 
in the various disquisitions of Plato respecting the 
soul (if indeed so lame an effort may justly be de- 
scribed in such terms) is contained in his Republic. 
The following is a brief abstract of the reasoning 

'' Div. Leg. iii. §. 3. p. 115. 



among mankind in general. 93 

there pursued : " The destruction of every perish- 
" able substance is effected by some evil peculiar to 
" its nature, the evil which destroys it being the 
" same with that which depraves it : thus, wood is 
*' destroyed by rottenness, and iron by rust. Now 
" the evil peculiar to the soul is vice : for it is this 
" which depraves it. But it is plain that vice does 
" not, by any direct operation of its own, destroy the 
" soul. The vice of injustice, for instance, will 
" never of itself cause the death of a man. It may 
" indeed provoke the vengeance of the law, and 
" death may follow : but this is an accidental, not a 
" physical and necessary consequence. The soul is 
" therefore distinguished from all perishable things 
" by this peculiarity ; that which causes its deprava- 
" tion does not also cause its destruction : it is there- 
" fore imperishable. You cannot say that the soul 
" is destroyed by a disease or death, for these are 
" not the peculiar evils of the soul : they cannot 
•* deprave it, and therefore cannot destroy it. To 
" say the contrary, would be to contradict the uni- 
" versal principle of nature, which makes the depra- 
" vation and destruction of things to spring from the 
" same cause. As therefore the soul is not de- 
" stroyed by* any evil peculiar to itself, and it cannot 
'* be destroyed by the evil of any thing else ; it must 
" be indestructible and immortal^." The separate 
existence of the soul being thus established as the 
necessary basis of a future retribution, the prospect 
of that retribution is deduced in the following man- 
ner. *• The actions and moral disposition of all men 
" are known to the gods : by them, therefore, the 

* Platonis Opp. vol. vii. p. 311 — 316. 



94 Origin of the belief in a future state 

" virtuous will be loved, and the wicked hated." 
" To the virtuous, their dispensations will therefore 
" be framed in that way which is best of all adapted 
" to promote their welfare. We ought therefore to 
" entertain this persuasion respecting the just man : 
" whether he labour under poverty, or disease, or 
" any thing else which is esteemed an evil, to him, 
" either during his life or after his death, the final 
" issue of things will be happy. For that man will 
" never be neglected by the gods, who will vigor- 
'' ously endeavour to be just, and, by the sedulous 
" observance of virtue, to liken himself to God, as 
" much as it is possible for man to do so. And on 
" the other hand, the contrary fortune is what we 
" must contemplate as likely to be the portion of the 
" unjust man. So far then as the gods are con- 
" cerned, such must be the triumphant glories ap- 
** pointed for the just ^." 

This, I believe, may be considered as the very best 
specimen of reasoning respecting a future state which 
the writings of Plato afford. Further we need not 
follow the speculations of this subHme genius. There 
is one general remark which applies to all his disqui- 
sitions on the soul. In the sober estimation of man- 
kind they can be regarded as little better than nu- 
gatory. Arguments which prove too much are 
just equivalent to those which prove nothing. Yet 
such, if we go along with him to the full extent of 
his conclusions, are the tendency and the value of 
all the reasonings which Plato has advanced on this 
subject. 

The proofs which in this case we require are 

^' P. 3 19, 320. 



among mankind in general. 95 

those of a future state of reward for the virtuous, 
and of punishment for the wicked : and we wish 
this doctrine to be placed upon such a footing as 
may render an efficient support to vii^tue and happi- 
ness among men. Are these desires satisfied by the 
great philosopher ? Far from it. You are taught to 
believe the separate existence and immortality of 
the soul : but the process of reasoning, by which 
you are conducted to this inference, is as much 
available to prove the existence of the soul before 
you were born, as its survival after you are dead. 
Of these propositions the former is a flat contradic- 
tion to your own sense and experience. You there- 
fore can place no confidence in the latter, because 
they are both deduced from the same views and 
principles. Again : you desire the proofs of a retri- 
bution suited to the character of a moral agent ; 
and you are answered by reasonings which hold 
equally good with regard to brutes, in whom the 
moral character does not exist. Hence a just ob- 
jection attaches to the proofs of a principle which is 
made to extend so far beyond its reasonable limits. 
Such is the philosophical system of Plato. In all 
his dissertations on this subject, the doctrine of a 
future state is found to subsist in inseparable connec- 
tion Vvdth the immortality of brutes, and the pre- 
existence of the soul. 

- So futile were the attempts of philosophy to de- 
monstrate a truth of previous acquisition. Much 
reason then have we to deny its competence to the 
far more arduous task of original discovery. But 
to argue this point is in fact unnecessary. The con- 
fession of those ancient sages whose names are al- 



96 Origin of the belief in a future state 

leged in proof of the contrary, leads us at once to 
the position we maintain. The doctrine itself was 
insisted on by them, not as a discovery of reason or 
an instruction of nature, but as a truth obtained 
from traditional conveyance. Socrates himself, while 
confidently asserting the future existence of the soul 
and the retribution appointed for it, is represented 
by Plato as saying, " These things I believe, because 
" I have HEARD them;" and again with reference 
to the same subject, " By these traditions, or 
" REPORTS, I am firmly persuaded^." Many similai 
confessions are to be found dispersed through the 
writings of that philosopher ^. Whatever indeed may 

^ Gorgias. The original words will be found in the note im- 
mediately following. 

f A collection of these passages has been made by Bishop Law, 
in a note on his Considerations on the Theory of Religion. The 
substance of that note I will here present to the reader. " This" 
[viz. the use of traditional authority by the heathen philosophers] 
•' appears to have always been the case in most of the best things 
*' which they deliver on the most important subjects, as may be 
" easily discerned by the abrupt manner in which they commonly 
*' retail such sentiments ; by their seldom reasoning on them long 
"consistently; or being able to pursue their natural conse- 
" quences : from whence methinks any indifferent person would 
** conclude, that they had never traced such out by their own rea- 
'* son, nor were the original discoverers of them ; at least, I could 
" not help concluding so from hence; as well as from their fre- 
" quent citing of traditioUy and some sacred records for them ; and 
" appealing to what they have heard upon such subjects. I might 
" have set down numberless expressions, that confirm the observ- 
" ation, though I do not doubt but the same thing has been ob- 
'* served by many others : however, I shall point out some remark- 
" able passages from Plato to this purpose. Philehus: 01 ^uev wa- 
" Aa«ot Kp€iTT<iV€(; vjfjLuv Kai (yyvTtpco Oeaiv oiKovvrei; TATTHN <I>HMHN 
" nAPEAOZAN. Id. Epist. vii. UaBtcrBai ^e ovtw^ ocet xp-^i nAAAIOIS 



among mankind in general. 97 

be the lofty pretensions of modern infidelity in stat- 
ing the prerogative of reason, it ought to be remem- 
bered, that these pretensions are advanced by per- 
sons enjoying the advantages of a light which they 
dishonour and disparage, but that they derive no coun- 
tenance from the early teachers of the Gentile world, 
who, though not excluded from the remote influ- 

" TE KAI 'IEP012 AOrOIS- 01 AE MHNT0T2IN 'HMIN A0ANA- 
" TON "^J-'TXIIN EINAI, St/catxTa? re ic-yjeiv, Kai nveiv ra^ ixeyKnciii 
*' Tiu.o3picx,<;, orav nc, anaWa.'/P'f^ tov G-aficcroi;. Gor^ias : Tayr' ecTtv, a 
" Ka/JviKXeiq, a eya AKHKOHS "KKTZdva ccK'fiB't\ eit'oci, Kai €k tovtccv tuv 
" Aoycou roiovie Aoyi'^of^ai (rvix^aiyeiy. 'O Oavccro^ k. t. X. Ibid. Eya iA.ev 
" ovv, a KaXkiK\et<;, 'THO TOTTON THN AOFON nEHEISMAI. Phse- 
«' do : nAAAIOS MEN OTN ESTI TIS 'O AOFOS 0YT02 ov !xey,yri- 
'* lAeQoc, a^ eiciv ev^evSe acpiKOf/.ei'Cci [at xj^vx^cci] Kai noCfM ye Zevpo cKptK- 
"• vowrcci, Koci yiyvovrai eK tccv redyearcov. Id. Ibid, 'A Se Kai AEFETAI 
*' lA€yi<rra w^eXeo vj ^Accwreiv rou reX^vT/jo-ocvra evdvq ev af^ri r'/jq €Kei(T€ 
*' iropeiai;. AErETAI Se ovrax;, w? apa, TeXevT/jO-ayra e/cao-rov o eKaiTTOV 
" Sai/xcyi/ ocrTtep 'C,a)vra, eiXr^yjii uvtoc, aydtv eiziy^eipei €iq S'/j Tiva tottov, qI Set 
** Tovq a-vXXf:y€yTa.qdiahiKacra[^€yov:; eiq a,'^ov TropeveaSai k. r.X. Ibid. IIoX- 
** Xo; Se €<(r< Kai Bccv^aa-roi tvj^ yrjq roitoi' Kai, avr'/j ovre ola, cure o<Tr] imo 
" rcov Ttepi y^q eicoBorav Xeyeiy, cbq eya vico rivaq IIEriTHMAI. Kai o 2tjW.- 
" /Aia?, Ttaq Tocvra, ecfjv}, Xeyeiq, co "EcoKpateq ; itepi yap rot rvj^ yvjq Kai av~ 
" T05 ntaXXa. Se aK'/jKoa K.r. X. Apol. Socr. Ei Se av olov aTtooYjUYjo-ai eariv 
*' Bavaroq evdev&e eiq aXXov tottov, Kai aXvjOvj eaTi TA AEFOMENA 
** K. T. X. Ibid. Tare yap aXXa €v'^ai[A,ove<TT€poi €i<riv ol cKei ray eydahe Kai 
*' yjS'/j Toy XoiTVOv xpovov aBavaroi ei(7i, eiitip ye TA AEFOMENA aXrfi-fi 
*• ttjTiy. Phaedrus : AKOHN F' EXO AEFEIN TON nPOTEPHN. 
" To 8' aXtfieq avroi icracTiy. ei Se tqvtq evpoiuey avroi, APA F' AN E0' 
" 'HMON MEAOI TI TON AN0PaniNnN AOSASMATON. Id. in 
*' Timaeo : E^w (l>paa-a, naXaioy AKHKOHS Xoyov, ov veov aytpoq. Id. de 
" Rep. 10. fin. Kai ovToc, a TXavKcoy, MT0O2 E2n0H Kai qvk aTiuXero. 
" Kai rj[xai; ay a-aaeiey, ay TteiOaiAeBa avTCc. From these few extracts 

" any one that can read Plato may judge, whether by his own 
" confession both he and his master Socrates did not borrow their 
*' notions concerning a future state of rewards and punishments 
" somewhere." Of the quotations thus adduced, by Law, 1 have 

H 



98 Origin of the belief in a future state 

ence of that benefit, partook of it in very scanty 
measures and supplies. By them the natural dark- 
ness of the human mind is ingenuously acknow- 
ledged. Whatever valuable principles of divine 
knowledge they held, these they profess to have 
borrowed from instruction, but use no endeavours to 
set them off as the native production of their own 
minds. 

" It is false and groundless to suppose that the 
** heathen world were utterly destitute of all the be- 
" nefits accruing from revelation, and that they were 
** indebted to the light of reason only for any va- 
'* luable knowledge they possessed respecting Divine 
" matters. This is contrary to fact, to history, and 
** to their own confession : a confession which in 
'* this case is surely deserving of credit, since it 
'* evinces the triumph of truth over that common 
" vanity, which disposes men to arrogate to them- 
** selves the praise of important discoveries Gre- 
" cian wisdom was the spoil of Egyptian and Ori- 
'* ental schools, where ancient truths had been wretch- 
" edly mangled and defaced, and where the light of 
*' natural reason was too weak to restore them to 
" their original holiness and purity. The philoso- 
** phers of that country, in all their loftiest flights, 
" raised themselves on borrowed pinions. The wisest 
" of them never supposed that a doctrine like that 
" of a future state was to be drawn out from the na- 
" tive stores of the human mind. Thev therefore 
*' stayed not at home to consult their own reasonings, 

taken the liberty of omitting one, which appears not so much to 
the point, and of giving another more fully from the text of 
Plato; and I have also added to them the insertion of a third. 



among mankind in general. 99 

** but traversed the world ^ and spent a great part 
" of their lives in searching for masters and instruc- 
" tion \" Agreeable to this was the form of their 
earliest philosophy, which was not argumentative, 
but purely dogmatical : their doctrines ciaiaiing not 
the praise of sagacious investigation, but resting 
avowedly on the basis of tradition and previous in- 
struction. So far were they from setting forth those 
doctrines as the discoveries of reason, that they pre- 
tended not even to offer reason in proof of their 
truth. In this cause may possibly have originated 
the ATTOS E^A of the Pythagoreans: which, though 
condemned by Cicero ^ as an unbecoming deference 
of reason to authority, was perhaps occasioned by 
the candour, rather than the pride, of ancient phi- 
losophy ^. 



But the pretensions of philosophy having in the 
present instance been unjustly set up to the dispa- 
ragement of that source from which the belief of a 
future state was truly derived, the just honour of 
revelation seems to demand something more than a 

^ *' Ultimas terras lustrasse Pythagoram, Democritum, Piato- 
" nem, accepimus. Uhi enim quid esset quod disci posset, eo vc- 
** niendnm. judicaverunt." Cic. Tusc. Disp. iv. 19. 

' Ellis's Knowledge of Divine Things. 

^ De Nat. Deor. I. v. Jamblichus indeed pretends, that Pytha- 
goras did give reasons for the doctrines which he taught. De Vita 
Pythag. §. 87, 88. But his testimony is of little value in contra- 
diction to the general sense of antiquity ; especially as he lived 
so many ages after the person whose life he writes, and his work- 
contains many and manifest indications of contempt for truth. 

' See Dr. Graves's Lectures on the four last books of the Pen- 
tateuch, vol. ii. p. 341. Shuckford's Connection, Pref. to vol. i. 
and Warburton's Div, Leg. iii. §. 4. vol. iii. p. 177. 

H 2 



100 Origin of the belief in a future state 

mere proof of the negative. These pretensions will 
be more fully exposed by computing historically the 
real influence which has resulted from philosophy 
in the views of this important subject, to which men 
have been conducted under its guidance. For this 
purpose, it will be desirable that we should take a 
general survey of the most remarkable opinions re- 
specting the soul, which, before the promulgation of 
the Gospel, had obtained the sanction of philosophi- 
cal authority : connecting with this survey of opi- 
nions a notice, of the principles from which they 
were deduced, and of the evidence which w as offered 
in their support. This task we will therefore en- 
deavour to perform : after first, however, claiming 
those allowances which are due to the scanty and 
uncertain records of early philosophy, and the incon- 
sistency and contradiction which run through every 
period and division of it "\ That the doctrine of 
a future state is no human discovery, we have al- 
ready seen. The cursory review on which we are 
about to enter will strengthen this conclusion, by 
establishing a contrary effect in actual connection 
with the alleged cause of its introduction. It will 
bring to light the gross corruptions which this doc- 
trine underwent in the Gentile schools ; and will 
make it fully manifest, that those corruptions are 
justly chargeable on the perverted exercise and vain 
speculations of that faculty, in which the doctrine it- 
self is by some supposed to have originated. 

" Qiioniam ratio illis non (jiuulrabat, jjtM- ignorantiani reriim 
'* divinarum, tani varii, tam incerti fiierunt (philosophi), sibique 
" saepe contrarla diseerentes, \\\ (juid sentirent, quid vellent, sta- 
" tuere ac dijudicare non possis." Lact. Div. Inst. iii. 28. 



among mankind in general. 101 

The knowledge of a future state was obtained, as 
we have seen, by the ancient sages of Greece from 
tradition and instruction : the contrary opinion, by 
which it is regarded as the fruit of rational investi- 
gation, being peculiar to their modern admirers, but 
wholly disclaimed by themselves. It had been firmly 
established among mankind from the remotest anti- 
quity to which the memory of the world extends, 
and had become diffused into all the varieties of re- 
ligious faith, however discordant in other respects, 
which prevailed throughout the earth. Soon after 
the dawn of philosophy, it was adopted into the 
Grecian systems : but it was little beholden to the 
patronage it thus obtained. The early teachers of 
Grecian wisdom derived from very polluted foun- 
tains the greater part of their peculiar tenets : that 
is to say, chiefly from Egypt, the mother of abomi- 
nations, and partly also from Phenicia, Chaldea, and 
the Persian magi °. 

Before we describe the alterations it underwent 
in the process of discussion and inquiry, it will be 
right to give a brief outline of the form in which it 
was previously entertained. 

The popular belief of early Greece respecting this 
great fundamental of religion may be gathered from 
that portion of its literature, which, being anterior to 
the age of philosophy, was therefore secure from its 
infection. In the very remote antiquity of that 
people, the current ideas of a future state appear 
to have been strongly tinctured with the prevailing 
sentiments of savage life, in which the notions of 

" See the Supplementary Rem arks. 
H 3 



102 Origin of the belief' in a future state 

rectitude are false, and those of its rewards debasing 
and gross : valour being confounded with virtue, and 
sensuality with happiness. Thus the felicity of the 
blessed was represented in the strains of Musseus to 
consist in perpetual festivity and drunkenness °. A 
later age brings us to the father of epic poetry. By 
him, both the immortality of the soul and a moral 
retribution are decidedly acknowledgedP. But here 
also, these great primeval truths occur to us de- 
based with so great an alloy of falsehood and folly, 
as scarcely to retain the slightest traces of their ge- 
nuine beauty and usefulness. In the future state of 
Homer, the punishment of flagitious guilt is remark- 
ably exemplified in various instances, conveying the 
most exquisite notions of hopeless labour, torment- 
ing privation, and excruciating pain. The dispen- 
sation of rewards is not wholly excluded : but these 
are of a complexion so dismal, that the prospect could 
never avail to dissipate the horror of death or to for- 
tify the purposes of virtue. They are also awarded 
according to that false estimate of morality which 
prefers splendour to rectitude, which lavishes ad- 
miration on the daring exploits of heroism, but dis- 
covers no respect for the peaceful and beneficent vir- 
tues. The only cases of the kind which we meet with, 



hi^jocij-i roi; ^iKaioic. Ek; t^lov yap ayayovreq toj Xoya ko-i KocraKXivavreq, 
Koct avuiroa-iov rav otriuv Karaa-Kevaa-ocvriq, tcrre^avw/Aevovi? '^oiov<rt tcv 
aTravTa %(30J/ov "^ir] diay^ii^ ixeOvoyTocq' '/j-yvjcra/xevot KaXXiarov apcT'/j^ (/.ktBov 
y.iBriV ctiuviof. Plato de Rep. ii. Op. vol. C. p. 218. Common opi- 
nion has assigned to this bard a greater antiquity than Homer ; 
Herodotus however intimates a different opinion, ii. .OS. 
»' Honi. Od. xi. xxiv. II. iii. 278, 279. 



r 



among mankind in general, 103 



are found in connection with those qualities which 
experience has discovered to be most conducive to 
the disturbance of mankind. These distinctions of fa- 
vour consist, moreover, in comparative abatements of 
misery, rather than in any experience of positive de- 
light. However varied in other respects may be the 
lot of departed spirits, one general shade of gloom 
and sorrow darkens the condition of them all ^. To 
illustrate this by examples : The mighty hunter, 
whose prowess had been exerted in repressing the 
depredation of monsters, is permitted to indulge in 
meadows of asphodel the pleasures congenial to his 
former life ; and the valour of the warrior is requited 
by swaying the sceptre of royalty over the inferior 
dead : but the latter is made to declare, that the de- 
gradation of mercenary servitude, and the hardships 
of penury in his former state of existence, would be 
gladly accepted in exchange for the honours and en- 
joyments of present dominion. We find indeed, in 
the inhabitants of Elysium, a state of real happiness, 
under a ,genial atmosphere and a smiling aspect of 
nature : but this is a portion to be envied rather 
than pursued, since it is not proposed to the general 
attainment of mankind, but represented as the pri- 

^ AI S' aWai ^pv^ai vskvccv KccraTeBveiarav 

Ea-Taa-av axvu/^cevai, EIPONTO AE KHAE EKASTH. 

Od. xi. 540. 

TiTTT avr , 0) Sucrrvji/e, Ant ecu (baoq rjeXioio, 
WAvQec;, o(ppcx, i^q v^Kvac, Kai ATEPHEA XOPON. 

lb. 92. 
So also Hesiod, Epy. Koa 'By.. 153. 

B'/jo-acv iq ETPOENTA AOMON KPTEPOT AIAAO. 
The general notion seems to be well expressed by JEschylus : 
'SKOT(fi (paot; KTOfAoipov. Choeph. 
H 4 



104 Origin of the belief in a future state 

vilege of fortune, not the prize of virtue^. Among 
the absurdities of this description we are particularly 
to remark the qualities assigned to the soul ; which 
is at one time set forth under the notion of a subtle 
etherial spirit ^ and at another represented as glut- 
ting its appetite with gross corporeal food ^ and 
flying with terror from a corporeal weapon". These 
are the striking features belonging to Homer's de- 
scription of a future state. The poems of Hesiod, 
which in this case possess the same authority, are 
distinguished by a general concurrence of tone, though 
less full in the details they supply. If any addi- 
tional circumstance ought to be specified, it is that 
which is afforded by the Hymns to which the name 

^ Thus Menelaus is destined to this happy state, not on account 
of any virtues he had exercised, but because he was the husband 

of Helen : 

_^- 

Apyet ev 'ntTto^oTai Bav€€iy Kai itori/.ov eTiia-iteiv' 
AXXa <r' €$ HXvo-iov TreSiOv /cat iteipara, yaoj^ 
ABavatoi ireiA^povtriv, {o6i ^ay6oq'Pa,da[ji.av6vq' 
Tt} Ttep pyjiaT'^i jStorvj TreXet avOpcoTtoia-iV 
Ov y/^6T0?, c/L't' ocp %e</x,&)v '7tQKv(;^ ovre ttot' o/x/3/jo?, 
AXX' aiei XecpvpoiQ Xiyv'7iV6iQVTcx,<; w^raq 
D,K€OiV0(; a,vii^<Tiv, avai|/ii%eiv avOpooizovq') 

OTNEK' EXEIS 'EAENHN, KAI 2<]^IN TAMBPOS AI02 E22I. 

Od.iv. 561. 
Hesiod also describes the blessed islands in a manner similar to 
the Elysium of Homer : but here also the happiness of that re- 
gion is not spoken of as the common hope of mankind, but the 
peculiar fortune of a race of heroes and demigods who had long 
ago been extinct. Ep-y. ««< 'H/a. J55 — l/j. 
^ Od. 203— 221. 
t lb. 94—97. 
» lb. 48, 230. 



among mankind in general. 105 

of Homer is commonly affixed, and which, if they be 
not the productions of that poet, are generally sup- 
posed to claim an antiquity little short of his age. 
In these we meet with a slight intimation of a doc- 
trine which was long retained in the popular theo- 
logy of Greece ^, that the blessedness of the separated 
soul would be greatly promoted by an initiation into 
the mysterious rites of Ceres y. 

Such is the general character of this doctrine of 
early mythology : so far, at least, as it can be ascer- 
tained from the small portion of authentic evidence 
now extant. And this description may be esteemed 
tolerably correct : for though it were to be con- 
sidered as the offspring of fancy rather than the 
transcript of real opinions ; yet it can hardly be 
doubted, that Homer, though he might be unfaithful 
in delineating the creed of his own age, was the pa- 
rent and founder of that which was subsequently en- 
tertained ^. 

In this disguised and mutilated form the doctrine 
of a future state was found by the early teachers of 
Gentile msdom. The sequel will evince, that in the 
hands of them and their successors it became still 
more distorted and disfigured ; gathering in the pro- 
gi^ess of disquisition a gradually increasing accumu- 
lation of error and folly, with a still more fatal in- 
fluence on the morals and welfare of mankind. 



^ Vide Plat. Ph^don. c. 13. 

>' Hymn, ad Cerer. ver. 485. 

^ This latter opinion has the sanction of Herodotus, who say?; 
of Homer and Hesiod, Oi5to* cto-* oJ nOIHSANTES Bt^o'^ovifiv 'EXX^jo-*, 
(ii. 53.) The former supposition is espoused by Blackweil in his 
Inquiry into the Life and Writings of Homer. 



106 Origin of the belief in a future state 

In tracing the progressive deterioration of that 
which was bad from the beginning, the first remark- 
able step which occurs to us was, the annexing to 
the notion of the soul's immortality that of its pre- 
existence. Under the uncertain light of distant 
antiquity, it is not easy to follow up to its beginning 
the chain of erroneous principles and false deduction 
which led to the adoption of this foolish conceit. 

That the human soul is a part of the Divine 
essence, appears to have been an ancient and pre- 
vailing tenet of philosophy : and the notion of its 
eternal preexistence was, according to one view of 
the subject, deduced from it ^. 

Another view supposes it to have been inferred 
from that favourite maxim of the atomical philo- 
sophy ; " nothing can be made out of nothing." The 
soul being regarded as a substance distinct from 
matter and from all modifications and qualities of it, 
it could not either spring out of nothing, or out of 
any substance different from itself: all natural ge- 
nerations being only the various dispositions and mo- 
difications of substances previously existing^'. 

A third opinion is, that it originated in an un- 
willingness to admit that the soul was liable to ex- 
tinction ; since this liability would be esteemed a 
consequence of admitting that it was generated with 
the body ^ 

•' Warburton's Div. Leg. iii. §. 4. vol. iii. 150, et seqq. 

^ Cudworth's Intellectual System, c. i. §. xxxi. 

*^ *' Neither was there ever any of the ancients before Chris- 
" tianity, that held the soul's future permanency after death, who 
** did not likewise assert its preexistence ; they clearly perceiving, 
" that if it were nncp qranted that the soul was generated, it could 
"■ never be proved but that it might he also corrupted." Cudworth'j* 



among mankind in general. 107 

For it would naturally occur to a speculative 
mind, that the future permanence of the soul lay 
open to this objection : as its existence commenced 
with the bodily life, it is reasonable to suppose 
that it will also terminate with that life. By the 
followers of Epicurus this objection was strongly 
urged, as a ground for treating with derision every 
sentiment which extended its regard beyond the 
grave ^. Those who venerate philosophy as the 
teacher of a future state ought here to be re- 
minded, that the subject of their admiration is justly 

Int. Sys. c. i. §. xxxi. So likewise Lactantiiis : " Nam cum time- 
" rent argumentum illud, quo colligitur necesse esse, ut occidant 
'• animae cum corporibus, quia cum corporibus nascuntur, dixe- 
" runt non nasci aniraas, sed insinuari potius in corpora, et de aliis 
" in alia migrare. Non putaverunt aliter fieri posse, ut supersint 
•* animae post corpora, nisi videantur fuisse ante corpora." Div. 
Inst. iii. 18. So inveterate does this notion appear in the ancient 
philosophy, that Nemesius (who presents another incongruous and 
loathsome compound of Christianity and Platonism) offers us the 
following dilemma : " If you say that the soul is generated with 
*• the body, you must admit, with Aristotle and the Stoics, that it 
" is subject to death : if, on the contrary, you declare it to be an 
" incorporeal essence, you must never admit that it was created 
" with the body. If you make such admission, you convey to 
'* us the notion of a perishable and irrational soul." De Nat. 
Hom. ii. p. 74. ed. Oxon. 1671. 

a '< Ergo dissolvi quoque convenit omnem animai 
'* Naturam, ceu fumus in altas aeris auras : 
*' Quandoquidem gigni pariter, pariterque videmus 
" Crescere, et, ut docui, simul aevo fessa fatiscit." 

Lucr. iii. 456. 
'* Quare etiam atque etiam nee originis esse putandum est 
'* Expertes animas, nee lethi lege solutas." 

Ibid. 6S6. 
Tai Se ^^vx^'^ '^'^^ av9/;awaj!/ ATESeAI AMA T0I2 SQiMASIN, OSHEP 
KAl 2TrrENNA20AI ATTOI2 T*©eT«i (EiriKovpo^). Grig. Pbilos.xxii. 



108 Origifi of the belief in a future state 

chargeable witli the open denial of that doctrine, as 
well as with perverting its true principles. Nor 
will the attempt avail to separate the name and 
sanction of, philosophy from these dangerous wander- 
ings of the mind. For the philosophical character 
was always as readily acknowledged and as much 
respected by mankind in general, in those who con- 
tradicted, as in those who asserted the immortality 
of the soul ® : and we have reason to believe, that the 
Epicurean sect were more numerous than the adhe- 
rents of any other ancient system of human instruc- 
tion^. 

The Pythagorean and Platonic schools did not, 
however, according to their public doctrines, admit 
the extinction of the soul at death. We may here 
observe, that the reasoning which deduces the future 
destruction of the soul from its having been generated 
with the body, is properly confuted, by alleging the 
moral and responsible character of man as the marks, 
which, without implying the necessity of a previous 
existence, designate him as the proper subject of a 
future state. They, however, pursued a different 
course. In order to repel the inference, they denied 
the fact on which it proceeds, and strenuously main- 
tained the past eternity of the soul. 

Akin to this, we have to remark in the next 
place, the large comprehension which was given to 
this doctrine in regard to the class of subjects whom 

*^ " In hac (luiitaxat contentione /io/i minus autoritatis hahuerunt 
" (jui contra banc sententiam disserebant, Dicaearchiis primo, de- 
" imle DcMJiocritus, postrciiio Epicurus." Lact. Div. Inst. vii. 8. 

' " Qiia^ritur sicpc, ('iir tani inulli sliit, Kpicurei ?" Cic. de Fin. 
1.7. 



among mankind in genef^al. 109 

it embraced. The moral feeling and rational en- 
dowments of man are commonly thought to afford 
the most reasonable ground for the expectation of a 
state of existence different from the present, in which 
for the most part all things happen alike to all : and 
indeed a reasonable ground it is, if accompanied with 
a belief of the divine forgiveness and mercy. The 
future state of the ancient philosophers was not how- 
ever limited by these considerations : it had a regard 
almost equally benign to the condition of men and 
that of brutes §, and annexed the privilege of im- 
mortality impartially to both. 

These principles being entertained, coherency of 
system would dictate a third, which forms a neces- 
sary consequence of them. This related to the num- 
ber of souls existing in the universe : which num- 
ber, it was contended, was the same from all eter- 
nity, and destined so to continue unchangeably with- 
out increase or diminution through every succession 
of future time ^. 

Thus in proportion as the dignity of the soul was 
exalted, the attributes of the Divinity were circum- 
scribed : the existence, at least, of the former being 
exempted from his control, while the introduction 
of a newly created soul was regarded as an effect be- 
yond the reach of his power. 

Those philosophical tenets which have hitherto 

^ Ylavxa ra yivQi/.^va ejM.i|/f%a o[Aoy€V'/} Sei vofAit^eiv. Porphyrii Vita 
Pythag. §. 19. " Non mediocres viri, sed maximi et docti, Pytha- 
" goras et Empedocles, unam omnium animalium conditionem 
" juris esse denunciant." Cic. de Rep. iii. 1 J . 

^^ Out' av ttou c'Accrrovq yevoivro [al i^u^at], iA,yi^€^taq aiK/kXv^^v'/ii;, ovTe 

av TrXeiov^. Plato de Rep. Opp. vol. vii. p. 31 6. 



110 Origin of the belief in a future state 

come under our observation, may possibly appear to 
be tinctured with the leaven of Egypt. On this 
point our acquaintance with the ancient doctrines of 
that country is too slight and dubious to warrant a 
decisive judgment '\ They are however all of them 
embodied in the system of the metempsychosis, 
which was unquestionably a leading doctrine of 
Egyptian superstition^ : a superstition which indi- 
cated the lowest intellectual debasement, and offered 
the most disgusting violations to the moral sense 
and decency of mankind. So low did philosophy 
stoop when she obtained the first acquaintance with 
those absurdities to which she extended her counte- 
nance, and which, with solemn airs of gravity and 
wisdom ^ she dispensed among her followers. Her 
powers were not employed in the discovery of truths 
by which the nature of man is exalted and refined, 
but in vindicating errors by which it is degraded 
and disgraced. 

But we must here discriminate between the 
Egyptian and the Grecian metempsychosis. The 
former would necessarily, in its general application, 
imply that the soul existed before the body : but it 
does not appear that this previous existence was, 
according to that system, supposed to have been 
eternal. This latter feature of absurdity was how- 
ever comprehended in the Grecian modification of 
it, and may possibly have been peculiar to it as a 

' Bnicker observes on this subject : " Ad conjecturas omnia re- 
** (lire modeste fatemur." Hist. Phil. vol. i. p. 297. 

i< Herod, ii. 123. Diod. Sic. i. 98. 

' The aifAvoTrpe-nfia of Pythagoras is particularly noted by Diog. 
Laeri. viii. §.36. 



among mankind in general. Ill 

distinction from the other '" : since it was by no 
means inconsistent with the genius of Greek philo- 
sophy to deteriorate, however originally bad, what- 
ever doctrines it embraced. 

The general doctrine of the soul's immortality had 
indeed been asserted by Thales and Pherecydes, at 
a period anterior to the introduction into Greece of 
that peculiar system which is known by the name 
of the metempsychosis. Of these, Thales appears 
by a residence in Egypt to have gained the best 
acquaintance he could with the follies of its su- 
perstition and the impostures of its priestcraft " : 
his notions respecting the soul might therefore pro- 
bably have been framed agreeably to these disco- 
veries ^. In what peculiar manner the doctrine was 
taught by Pherecydes, cannot be ascertained in the 
present defect of creditable testimony p. But it is 
highly probable that the principles maintained by 
both these early teachers in regard to the soul 
were the same, as to the particulars which have 
been specified, with those which were subsequently 
avowed by the Pythagoreans and Platonists. For 
it is important to observe, that the future state of 

"^ Warburton contends that it was. Div. Leg. iii. §. 4. p. 185. 

" Oi^S.e<5 avrov KaQfiyrjaaTO, ttXvjv ot' eiq Kifyvuzov ("KQcov rott; lepevtri 
2:YNAIETPr4^EN. Diog. Laert. i. 27- 

•^ The following passage from Plutarch gives us reason to think 
that his notions of the soul were the same with those of Plato, of 

which an account is given, page ®a,Xr}<; aiteip'/jvaTO itparot; tvjv t//t;- 

Xriv. <l>v(Tiv AEIKINHTON t? ATTOKINHTON. De Piac. Phil, iv, 2. 
Nemesius de Nat. Horn. c. ii. p. 41. 

P " Qua ratione animae immortalitatem asseruerit Pherecydes, 
'* veteres non explicant." Brucker's Hist. Phil. vol. i. p. 989. See 
the Supplementary Remarks. 



112 origin of the belief in a future state 

the ancient philosophy is no otherwise known to us 
than as embracing those pecuHarities which we have 
noticed. Thus it was, at least, till the age of the 
Gospel : after which pagan philosophy soon disco- 
vered a disposition (in which it has been followed by 
modern infidelity) to appropriate the discoveries of 
revelation, and at the same time to shed its venom 
on the sacred source of knowledge to which it was 
indebted ^. But previously to that time, wherever 

^ " If reason be so sharpsighted, as to discover all things es- 
*' sential to natural religion and morality, (as so called^) how 
" comes it to pass, that these later philosophers reached a much 
*' higher elevation, and wrote in so much diviner a strain, than 
*' their masters did, and excel Plato (who for so many ages was 
*' the deity of reason and virtue) as far as he did the most fabulous 
" theologists who went before him, in their discourses on the Su- 
" preme Being, his attributes, creation, providence, nature, and 
*' the immortality of the soul, &c. ? They could not have it from 
*' Pythagoras or Plato, who had made no such clear discoveries ; 
" nor had any rational or tolerable account till this time been 
*' given of them ; they were secrets to the heathens, till they be- 

** gan to study in the schools of Christians. 1 may add, that 

" this is the very case of modern infidelity. How comes it to 
" pass, that their systems are more regular, and their deductions 
*' of virtue clearer ? Whence are those sublimer duties and no- 
" tions, and principles more solid, and better established, than 
*' appear among the ancients ? Are th*ey wiser than Socrates or 
" Cicero ? is their capacity of mind greater, their study severer, 
'• or their knowledge more universal and extensive ? Certainly the 
*' very reverse : their art is inferior, but the materials they had to 
" work upon were better, and therefore their sacrilege the more 
•' notorious. They learned these things in the word of God, and 
*' then disown their benefactor." Ellis's Knowledge of Divine 
Things. See the same work for the general proof and illustration 
of this remark, p. 38 — .50. The same truth, as it applies to mo- 
dern infidelity, is stated and explained with remarkable clearness 
and force by Warburton : " The ancients neither knew the origin 



among mankind in general, 113 

the immortality of the soul is philosophically deli- 
vered so as to include the notion of distinct per- 
sonality ; there the eternal preexistence of souls 
both human and brutal, and the unchangeable num- 
ber of them, are to be understood as forming a 
part of the doctrine thus designated^. Nor is it ma- 

'' of obligation, nor the consequence of obedience. Revelation 
** hath discovered these principles ; and we now wonder, that 
" such prodigies of parts and knowledge could commit the gross 
" absurdities which are to be found in their best discourses on 
" morahty. But yet this does not hinder us from falling into a 
" greater and a worse delusion. For having of late seen several 
*' excellent systems of morals, delivered as the principles of natu- 
" ral religion^ which disclaim, or at least do not own, the aid of 
*' revelation, we are apt to think them, in good earnest, the dis- 
" coveries of natural reason ; and so to regard the extent of its 
** powers as an objection to the necessity of any further light. 
•' The objection is plausible ; but sure, there must be some mis- 
" take at bottom ; and the great difference in point of excellence, 
'* between these supposed productions of mere reason, and those 
''real ones of the most learned ancients, will increase our sus- 
'* picion. The truth is, these modern system-makers had aids, 
'* which as they do not acknowledge, so, I will believe, they did 
*' not perceive. These aids were the true principles of religion, de- 
•* livered by revelation : principles so early imbibed, and so clearly 
'* and evidently deduced, that they are now mistaken to be amongst 
*' our first and most natural ideas : but those who have studied 
" antiquity know the matter to be far otherwise." Divine Lega- 
tion, iii. §. 5. vol. iii. p. 213. 

' *' Nemo [philosophorum] vidit, quod est verissimum, et 
" nasci animas, et non occidere." Lact. Div. Inst. iii. 18. •' In- 
" deed it is a thing very well known, that according to the sense 
'' of philosophers, these two things were afways included to- 
" gether in that one opinion of the soul's immortality, namely, its 
" pre-existence as well as its post- existence. Neither was there ever 
'' any of the ancients before Christianity, that held the soul's future 
** permanency after death, who did not likewise assert its pre-exist- 

I 



114 Origin of the belief in a future state 

terial to determine, whether these peculiar views of 
Grecian philosophy were first framed in accommoda- 
tion to the metempsychosis, and suggested by it^ \ 
or whether that monstrous doctrine was incorporated 
into the philosophical system by reason of its apti- 
tude to coalesce with such views previously enter- 

" ence. It is plain also, that this doctrine of the ancient atom- 

" ists concerning the immateriality and immortality, the prae and 
** post-existence of souls, was not confined by them to human 
" souls only, but extended universally to all souls and lives what- 
" soever. They resolved that all souls and lives whatsoever, 
*' which now are in the world, ever were from the first beginning 
" of it, and ever will be ; that there will be no new ones produced 
•* which are not already, and have not always been, nor any of 
" those which now are, destroyed." Cudworth's Intell. Syst. i. 
§.31,32. If it be necessary to qualify by any exception what is thus 
asserted, it is that which occurs in the Timeeus of Plato : where 
it appears to be distinctly stated, (in direct contradiction to many 
other passages in his writings which positively declare the past 
eternity,) that the human soul was created in the way of composi- 
tion out of preexisting substances, (Oper. vol. ix. p. 326.) after the 
manner in which he had already described the creation of the soul 
of the world, (p. 312.) Still, however, even in this form, you 
have the doctrine of a soul preexistent to the body, and coeval in 
existence with the creation, or rather construction, of the uni- 
verse. We are to observe however, that Plutarch maintains this 
to be nothing more than a seeming contradiction to the general 
doctrine of Plato, and expresses great indignation that the latter 
should be supposed capable, in treating a subject to which he 
had particularly devoted his studies, of an inconsistency, which 
would have been disgraceful even in a drunken sophist. (Ile^i t^j? 
€v Tjjt^atw \pvxoyovia<;.) If we admit the explanation by which Plu- 
tarch proposes to vindicate the consistency of Plato, the gene- 
ral position contained in Cudworth, and in the text to which this 
note refers, must be allowed to retain its validity. 

^ So Warburton supposes. Div. Leg. iii. §. 4. vol. iii. p. 184, 
185. 



among ynankind in general, 115 

tained. The reasonings of Plato, who iirst reasoned 
upon the subject, were, as we have seen, framed upon 
principles purely metaphysical, to the almost total 
exclusion of those moral considerations which are 
necessary to fix the boundaries of their application. 
These reasonings, as we have also seen, were equally 
conclusive for the past and future eternity, the brutal 
and the human soul : and the metempsychosis was 
the form of doctrine they were meant to support. 

It would be improper to proceed without a mo- 
ment's pause to contemplate the mischief which must 
necessarily result from these principles. We cannot 
too strongly reprobate the conduct of those pretended 
advocates for the immortality of the soul, who as- 
cribed to it a retrospective existence. This was 
imparting to the doctrine a vulnerable quality which 
does not justly belong to it, and putting a wea- 
pon of assault into the hands of the enemy : a wea- 
pon which might be wielded with the greater effect, 
because the common sense of mankind would be 
enlisted in the cause. Accordingly we find, that 
in the exposure and derision of this notion consists 
a great part of what is advanced by Lucretius for the 
purpose of disproving a future state : that notion 
being treated as an essential part of the doctrine, the 
confutation of which involved a confutation of the 
whole. We have to complain of a similar tendency 
in the mode of deducing immortality from a simple 
regard to the incorporeal principle of animal motion 
and volition. How, we may reasonably ask, can 
such deduction be restrained from extending itself 
from the human to the brutal soul? The difficulty 
of this limitation will be illustrated by the following 

I 2! 



116 Origin of the belief in a future state 

remark of Cudworth. " We shall endeavour," says 
that great writer, " to suggest something towards the 
" easing the minds of those, who are so much bur- 
** dened with this difficulty ; namely, That they may, 
" if they please, suppose the souls of brutes, being 
** but so many particular eradiations or effluxes from 
" that source of life above, whensoever and where- 
" soever there is any fitly prepared matter capable 
'* to receive them, and to be actuated by them, to 
" have a sense and fruition of themselves in it, so 
** long as it continues such ; but as soon as ever those 
** organized bodies of theirs, by reason of their indis- 
** position, become uncapable of being further acted 
" upon by them, then to be resumed again and re- 
** tracted back to their original head and fountain. 
** Since it cannot be doubted, but what creates any 
** thing out of nothing, or sends it forth from itself, 
" by free and voluntary emanation, may be able ei- 
" ther to retract the same back again to its original 
" source, or else to annihilate it at pleasure ^" But 
now the question arises : Why should not the same 
power of retracting and annihilating be exercised 
upon man also ? Such is the essential weakness of 
those reasonings respecting the future destiny of 
man which proceed upon principles purely metaphy- 
sical. It is true, this writer proceeds afterwards to 
state the real grounds of distinction belonging to 
the moral and rational constitution of man : but this 
is only to confirm our position, that such distinction 
cannot satisfactorily be maintained on any other 
principles. 

The prospect of perpetuity in the human exist- 
' Intellectual System, c. i. §. 35. 



among marikind in general, 117 

ence has indeed been deduced in a pleasing and ju- 
dicious, if not an irrefragable, manner, from an ex- 
amination of its inherent qualities and powers : but 
in this instance, the force of the reasoning con- 
sists in coupling with that examination a regard to 
the purposes of nature and the wisdom of creation. 
The argument may be briefly stated thus: The 
seed of a forest-tree contains within it a latent prin- 
ciple of life, which was given with a view to its 
future magnitude, its towering height^ its long con- 
tinuance of growth, and the duration of centu- 
ries. Would the Author of nature have infused 
such a principle into the embryo of a fleeting produc- 
tion, which is destined to rise but little above the 
ground, to mature and wither away soon after its 
appearance? And do we not find in the human 
soul a corresponding faculty, which indicates in its 
Creator the contemplation, not of centuries, but of 
eternity? a faculty of enlarging its powers and 
extending its knowledge in infinite progression, and 
in the exercise of those functions which peculiarly 
belong to it ? If nature do nothing in vain ; if 
she delight not in counteracting her own tenden- 
cies ; shall we say that this capacity of endless im- 
provement was given only with a view to a limited, 
and even a short, existence ? Let us pursue the ar- 
gument in the beautiful language of the author who 
first suggested it. " Would an infinitely wise Being 
^" make such glorious creatures for so mean a pur- 
" pose ? Can he delight in the production of such 
" abortive intelligences, such shortlived reasonable 
" beings ? Would he give us talents that are not 
" to be exerted ? capacities that are never to be 

I 3 



118 Origin of the belief in a future state 

" gratified ? How can we find that wisdom which 
" shines through all his works, in the formation of 
^' man, without looking on this world as only a nur- 
" sery for the next ; and believing that the several 
** generations of rational creatures, which rise up 
** and disappear in such quick successions, are only to 
" receive their first rudiments of existence here, and 
" afterwards to be transplanted into a more friendly 
" climate, where they may spread and flourish to all 
" eternity ?" The reasoning thus stated is more than 
equal in value to every thing that ever was offered 
by the ancient philosophers on the same subject. Our 
attention is more especially due to it by reason of its 
exemption from all the defects attached to their spe- 
culations. Here is no confusion of the human and 
the brutal soul. For, to revert to the words of the 
same incomparable writer ", " a brute arrives at a 
" point of perfection that he can never pass : in a 
** few years he has all the endowments he is capable 
" of; and were he to live ten thousand more, would 
" be the same thing he is at present." Nor is there 
any thing here which implies the necessity of a pre- 
vious existence, but rather a presumption of the 
contrary : for the argument supposes a perpetual ad- 
vancement towards perfection from a weak and slen- 
der beginning, in the continual increase of strength 
and enlargement of knowledge, without the possi- 
l)ility of ever reaching the point which it always 
approaches. But we must quit the refreshing pros- 
pect unfolded to us in this sublime contemplation, 
and resume our progress over those barren deserts 
which we have undertaken to traverse. 
" Addison, Spectator, No. 111. 



among mankind in general. 119 

The metempsychosis of Egypt developed a pros- 
pect of immortality so degrading and loathsome, 
that, in the estimation of Cicero, a total extinction 
of life would be preferable to the kind of existence 
which it promises ^. According to this system, the 
human soul is supposed to pass, after its separation 
from the body, into other animal bodies, successively 
to all eternity, resuming the human character, after 
going through the whole round of the brute crea- 
tion, once in every revolution of three thousand years. 
That this doctrine was the native growth of Egypt 
we learn from Herodotus y. The passage which 
conveys this information has indeed been the sub- 
ject of an unaccountable misconstruction, in which 
even the learned have been bewildered ^ : for though 
the historian asserts, in language sufficiently perspi- 
cuous, that the Egyptians were the first who taught 
the transmigration, he has been almost universally 
understood to say, that they were the first who 
taught the immortality, of the soul. With some 
modifications, the doctrine thus described was trans- 
ferred into the systems of Pythagoras and Plato, 
and thus supplanted those more simple notions of 
future retribution, which we have already noticed 
as belonging to the popular faith of the early 
Greeks. 

The views of a future state which philosophy 
thus espoused are plainly encumbered with diffi- 

^ " Si nemo est quin emori malit, quam convert! in aliquam 
" figuram bestiae, quamvis hominis mentem sit habiturus :" — Cic. 
apud Lact. Div. Inst. v. 1 1 . 

y Herodotus, ii. 123. 

^ The names of Warburton, Brucker, sir John Marsham, VVit- 
sius, and, I believe, many others of great distinction, may be ad- 
duced in justification of this remark. See the Suppl. Rem. 



120 Origin of the belief in a future state 

culties, arising from the contradiction they present 
to the common sense of mankind. It is fit there- 
fore, in order to a fair estimate of the merits and 
genius of ancient philosophy, that we should turn 
our attention to the methods which were employed 
for obviating them. In doing this, it will be right 
to consider, whether we discover a reliance on the 
unassisted powers of argumentation and resources 
of intellectual strength ; or whether we do not ra- 
ther recognise those indications of artifice and impos- 
ture which are at all times disgraceful, but most 
especially in those who profess the instruction of 
mankind in wisdom and virtue. 

That the soul existed before the commencement 
of the present corporeal life, is a notion, which, in 
order to be credited, obviously requires the confir- 
mation of memory and experience. Thus the poet 
very naturally inquires : 

Si immortalis natura animai* 
Constat, et in covpus nascentihus ms'inuatu?' : 
Cur super anteactam aetatem meminisse nequimus? 
Nee vestigia gestarum rerum ulla tenemus ^P 

As the want of such confirmation is generally felt, 
Pythagoras undertook to supply the deficiency. The 
means which he employed for that purpose are thus 
related. 

He presented himself to the public assembly of 
the Crotonians in the character of a person who had 
suddenly returned from the other world. His paUid 
countenance and emaciated body displayed the form 
of a reanimated corpse. As to the reality of his 
death, that was regarded as a matter of undoubted 
notoriety. It had been generally reported seven 
* Lucretius, iii.670. 



among mankind in general. 121 

years since, universally believed during the whole 
of the intermediate time, never contradicted, or even 
suspected. These circumstances sufficed, in the esti- 
mation of his hearers, to verify his pretensions. He 
also proved himself, in a public discourse, to possess 
the fullest knowledge of every remarkable incident, 
public and private, which had occurred among them 
during the abovenamed period. The inference which 
his hearers deduced from this evidence was that 
which he desired to establish ; namely, that his in- 
formation had been obtained by an intercourse with 
the spirits of those who had died in the interval be- 
tween his own supposed death and his present re- 
appearance. This information we derive from se- 
veral writers of antiquity^ : by whose testimony it 
further appears, that, during the said interval, he 
had, after first propagating a rumour of his death, 
abstracted himself from the light of day and the in- 
tercourse of mankind in a subterranean abode ; hold- 
ing communication with no human being except his 
mother, by whom he was carefully and minutely 
informed of every thing that passed ; and, before he 
emerged from his dark recess, taking good care, by 
an abstemious and penitential diet, to make the 
ghastly aspect of his person correspond with his pre- 
tensions. 

His credit was thus established as a competent au- 
thority for his doctrines ; agreeably to the following 
lines of the poet, which are supposed to allude to 
this adventure : 



^ TertuUian, De Anima, c. 28. Flerniippusi up. Diog. Laert. viii. 
§.4I. Schol. in Soph. El. 62. 



122 Origm of the belief^ in a future state 

Wlri yci^ iilov TToXKuKic xai tou; (Topou; 

Relying on this authority, he attests the truth of 
his metempsychosis from his personal experience. 
He enumerates the names of four characters ^ whose 
persons he sustained before he assumed that of Py- 
thagoras. Among these was that of a warrior slain 
at the siege of Troy. With him he identifies him- 
self by describing the marks on a shield, which he 
declared that he had himself worn in that memorable 
war, and which, corresponding with his description, 
was found in a temple where it had been dedicated 
by his conqueror ^. The story, as Tertullian inti- 
mates o, bears upon it very strong characters of im- 
posture : but these we dwell not upon, our present 
object being to expose, and not to confute, the folly 
of Grecian philosophy. Admitting however the evi- 
dence which is thus tendered, a difficulty presents 
itself in accounting for the want of consciousness, of 
which all men are sensible, with regard to the pre- 
vious characters with whom they are thus identified. 
In order to the solution of this difficulty you are in- 
structed, that before every readmission of the soul 

'' Sophocles, Electra, 62. 

«= Diog. Laert. viii. §. 4, 5. Porph. V. P. §. 45. 

^ Diog. Laert. viii. 5. Ov. Met. xv. 160. 

e Referring to the story of his den, which we have above re- 
lated, he says with regard to such a character, *' Quam non ac- 
" cesserit temeritatem, quam non tentaverit curiositatem, ut ad 
** notam clypei illius perveniret ? Quid autem si in historiis ali- 
*' quibus occultioribus reperit ? Quid si defectae jam traditionis 
" superstites aliquas famae aurulas hausit ? Quid si ab aedituo re- 
" dempta clam inspectione cognovit ?" De Anima, c. 28. 



among mankind in general. 123 

into a body, the shades of total darkness and obli- 
vion are thrown over all the previous stores of ex- 
perience and memory ; all is forgotten, and, so far 
as consciousness is concerned, a new existence is 
begun. Still there remains one question : If such 
be the general law, how does it happen that Pytha- 
goras himself is exempted from it ^ ? The point is 
thus cleared up. In one of the characters which 
he sustained, he was much beloved by Mercury^ and 
esteemed his son. From that divinity he obtained 
an offer of any thing he chose to ask, short of immor- 
tality. The boon which he implored was the per- 
petual retention of his memory. This favour being 
granted, he was raised above the common lot of 
mortality, by preserving through the various changes 
of life he was destined to undergo, a consciousness 
of his identity : he thus became acquainted with the 
doctrine of the transmigration, and with the condi- 
tion of departed souls \ Such were the tricks of 
this impostor, in order to establish the credibility of 
his doctrine : and in these proceedings we are espe- 
cially to observe, that not any deductions of logic 
from the nature of the soul, the constitution of the 
world, or the attributes of the Deity, but his own 
alleged experience and his own transmigrations, 
were the medium of proof on which he chose to in- 
sist for the purpose of evincing the immortality of 
the soul ^. 

^ " Cur solus Pythagoras alium atque alium se recognoscat, 
'* non et ego ?" Tert. de An. 31. 
^ Diog. Laert. viii. §.4, 5. 

^ Au€cf)ep€v S' ai/rov eiq rovq Ttporepov yeyovora^;' Trpurov fxev Ev(fjopl3o(; 
Xeyoov yevca-Qar hevrepov S' Aj^aXtSvj?* rpiTOv 'Epi/.OTifAoc;' xeTaprov Se Wvp- 



124 Origin of the belief in a future state 

The methods resorted to by Piatt) for the same 
purpose will next deserve our attention. By him 
the metempsychosis of Pythagoras was adopted with 
slight variations from the system of his predeces- 
sor^. In order to obviate the difficulty arising 
from the contradiction of sense and experience, he 
presents you with a pretty metaphysical conceit, by 
virtue of which you are taught to believe, that the 
knowledge acquired by the soul during the present 
life is only the recollection of notices which had been 
previously familiar to it, and which therefore evince 
the certainty of a previous existence ^^, 

With an apparent consciousness, however, of the 
slippery foundation on which his doctrine was thus 
placed, he also deems it necessary to supply you 
with the testimony of a person, who, returning to 
life after he had been dead twelve days, communi- 
cates the result of his own observation and inquiries 

poc; vvv 8e HvBocyopac' AT 'ClN e^eiKwev, 'ax; aSavaroq rj 4'^XV- Porph. 
de V. Pythag. §. 45. So also in Ovid, he declares the immortality 
of the soul, and deduces the proof of it thus : 

" Mortecarent animae: semperque, priore relicta 

" Sede, novis domibus habitant vivuntque receptee. 

*• Ipse ego {nam memini) Trojani tempore belli 

" Panthoides Euphorbus eram. Met. xv. 

' Thus, for instance, Pythagoras declared himself to have mi- 
grated three times into different bodies since the Trojan war (a 
period of abour 700 years), and that 207 years had elapsed since 
he last appeared upon earth (Diog. Laert. viii. §. 14): whereas 
Plato makes an interval of 1000 years to pass between every re- 
newal of corporeal life. 

"i Phaedon, ii. 18 — 22. ; Menon, Opp. vol. iv. pp. 351 et seqq. 
Arnobius has wasted his talents and eloquence in the confutation 
of this impertinence. Adv. Gen. ii. 1 9. et seqq. 



among mankind in general, 1 25 

during his short excursion to the shades. On the 
credit of this respectable traveller (who professes 
to be specially sent and peculiarly qualified for the 
instruction of mankind on this important subject) 
you are assured of both the rewards of virtue and 
the penalties of guilt. These are, with few excep- 
tions, limited in duration to a thousand years, and 
are not in any case distinctly stated to be eternal. 
At the expiration of this term, the separated soul 
receives a new lot, which determines its condition 
and fortunes on its ensuing return to the embodied 
life. This done, the waters of forgetfulness are 
drunk ; all recollection and consciousness of a former 
existence are immediately effaced in a Lethean slum- 
ber : from which the soul is suddenly awaked, when 
it reenters the body of some terrestrial animal, whe- 
ther man or brute, with all the feelings belonging 
to a new existence ". This notion is poetically con- 
veyed by Virgil in the following lines : 

Has omnes, ubi mille rotam volvere per annos 
Lethseum ad flumen Deus evocat agmine magno : 
Scilicet immemores supera ut convexa revisant, 
Rursus et incipiant in corpora velle reverti ^. 

Here the oblivious cup is supposed to efface the 
memory both of the troubles of the former life, and 
of the Elysian pleasures which succeeded them after 
death, and thus to create in the disembodied spirit a 
willingness to reenter on a corporeal mansion. 

" De Rep. x. vol. vii. p. 322. et seqq. See also the Phsedrus, 
vol. X. p. 326. ; and the Timaeus, pp.327, 432, et seqq. The va- 
rious accounts contained in these dialogues and the Phaedon are 
full of inconsistences, the detail of which is not necessary to our 
present purpose. 

« ^n. vi. 



126 Of'igin of the belief in a future state 

Such were the views maintained and taught by 
Plato and Pythagoras. But what shall we think of 
the glory of these illustrious names, if it shall ap- 
pear, that the doctrine of a future retribution, as it 
formed a part of their philosophy, was nothing more 
than a professed and public tenet, wholly at variance 
with their real opinions ? Yet this, after due in- 
quiry, will appear the probable conclusion p. We 
are to observe in the characters of both these men a 
remarkable desire of signalizing their talents for 
legislation, combined in no small degree with that 
common vanity of political innovators, so fatal (as 
experience has often proved) to the peace of man- 
kind, by which the theorist of government is led to 
imagine, that the interests of a nation can enjoy a 
safe and beneficial provision only in adopting and 
acting upon the speculations which himself approves. 
For the indulgence of this sentiment, Pythagoras 
obtained by his own ingenuity and the concurrence 
of circumstances an ample fields . That Plato was 

P For the general evidence in support of this position, see the 
third book of Warburton's Divine Legation. 

^ Porphyry (§. 2 1 .) and Jamblichus (§. 33.) in their lives of this 
philosopher, enumerate a long list of the cities in Italy and Sicily 
whose political constitutions he framed. His very pragmatical 
disposition, and the just apprehensions to which it gave rise among 
those who preferred peace to innovation, are strikingly illustrated 
in one of the accounts which are handed down to us of the circum- 
stances connected with his death. Being reduced to the neces- 
sity of flying for his life from the conspiracy of Cylon, and the ge- 
neral burst of popular hatred, which in various neighbouring 
states had manifested itself against both him and his sect, he be- 
took himself for refuge to the Locrians ; when he was thus ad- 
dressed by a deputation of their citizens : " We have heard, Py- 
" thagoras, the fame of your wisdom and talents, but we are per- 
" fectly contented with the laws of our country, and shall en- 



among mankind in general. 127 

less successful is matter of just congratulation to 
the interests of humanity. This latter philosopher 
imagined that he had discovered in his own sagacity 
the only available resource for redressing the griev- 
ances and sufferings of his fellow-creatures. For 
less than this cannot be understood, when he tells 
us, that of all the civil communities existing in his 
time, there was none worthy of the philosophical 
character, and that the prospect of happiness to the 
human race was desperate, till the time should come, 
when that character and supreme power were found 
united in the same persons : then only could his own 
ideal schemes of excellence be practically displayed 
in all theu' benign influence and heavenly lustre ^. 
Actuated, as we may suppose, by these sentiments, 
(for we have described them after his own expres- 
sions,) his efforts were not wanting to obtain an op- 
portunity of realizing his fanatical and detestable 



" deavour to maintain them. Take therefore what may be need- 
" ful for the supply of your necessities, and depart elsewhere." 
Porph. de Vita Pythag. §. bQ. 

(f>iXoa-0(pov c()vc-eic:, De Rep. vi. Opp. vol, ni. p. 96. Eav /xvj, rjv S' 
cya, vj ol (piKo<70(poi ^cca-iXeva-cca-iv €v ran; itoAea-ii/, r, ol ^aa-iKeiq re vt^v Ae- 
yofAevQi Kai tvvaa-rai (piXoa-Q(fy^(ra(7iyv7i(nut; re Kai iKavai;, KaiTovro ei^rav- 
tov ^vfATrearj ^vya(ji.i<; re -TToXtTi/c'/j kxi (pi'Aoa-ocpia,, rccy Se vw T:opevofji,evav yjti- 
pa; e^' eKarepov at TioAkai (pia-eit; ef ocvayKTj^ aTiOKXeiadcca-iv, OTK EDTl 
KAKON DATAA, u <^<Ae T/.ai^/ca'v, TAI2 nOAESIN" AOKH AE, 
OTAE THi ANQPnniNni TENEI. OTAE A'TTH 'H nOAITEIA MH- 
nOTE nPOTEPON ^TH; TE EIS TO ATNATON KAI ^HS 'HAIOT 
lAHi, 'HN NTN AOrHi AIEAHAT0AMEN. aXXoc tovto e<TTiv o ejxoi t:oc- 
y^ai OKvov tyriBr^tTi Xeyetv, opCi>yri u<; itokv 'Kccpa. So|av pr^^r^aeroa. yaXeiiw 
yoLf ileiv on OTK AN AAAH TIS ETAAIM0NH2EIEN, OTTE lAIA* 
OTTE AHMOIIAi. Ibid. v. p. 52. 



128 Origin of the belief in a future state 

commonwealth : and they were so far effectual, as 
to obtain from Dionysius the younger a promise of 
a tract of land and a number of colonists for that 
purpose ^ This promise, however, the cautious ty- 
rant was prudent enough to retract : and thus the 
world have been prevented from learning by expe- 
riment the value of a political system, which em- 
braced, among other monstrous peculiarities, an in- 
tercommunity of wives and property, the murder of 
weak and deformed infants, and the admission of 
women in common with men to civil and military 
offices. But both these great lights of paganism, 
though themselves justly suspected of infidelity with 
regard to a future retribution, could discover, when 
they undertook the work of legislation, that man- 
kind could not be governed without the influence 
of that doctrine : and we have the most probable 
grounds for supposing, that their profession of this 
tenet may have been dictated by a sense of political 
expediency, but that their initiated followers were 
taught after the example of themselves to believe 
the total falsehood of it ^ 

'' Diog. Laert. iii. 21. 

^ Such, in regard to Pythagoras, is the almost necessary infe- 
rence from the following passage of Timaeus the Locrian, whose 
short treatise is supposed to contain an authentic exposition of the 
real Pythagorean doctrines. It will here be observed, that a future 
retribution is spoken of as a doctrine of indispensable utility, but 
of acknowledged falsehood. 'Ot^j /acv o 8a</Acyv )ico</)a$ rao-S* eXa^e, S*' 

OK/.afo^ Kcii uTTeiO'/j^, tovru S' kiteaQo) KoKcLtric, d t' (.k tu)v vofAUV Kon d (.k 
Tuv Xoyw> (TvvTGVu CTtayoKTa, ZciiA.ocTa re enovpavia Kai ia Ka6 ciSeo), oti ho- 
Aaaieq uTiapaiT/jToi aitOKeivTcci ^v(r^ai[Aoa-i vcprepoiq' KCti raXXa 6<ra €T:aiv(.u> 
Tov IwinKW TtoifiTuv (K TtuAaiuq Ttoitvvra run; tvayew^. uk; yap ra. a'aixara, 
>o(ru(}((ri TTOKa vyiaX^OfXic,, (i ko. ix'fi (ikji roic {yiavoTctroK;, ovru TAS ■4'TXA— 



among mankind in general. 129 

The course of our present observations suggests 
a remark, which, if it be not called for by our im- 
mediate subject, may be pardoned as not wholly 
irrelevant to the cause of revealed truth. The dis- 
tinction of a public and a secret doctrine will be 
found to characterize almost every system of im- 
posture which was ever practised for the delusion 
of mankind. We find it in the priesthood of 
Egypt, the philosophers of Greece, the lawgivers 
and magistrates of Rome^: in almost every hea- 

AnEIPrOME2 ^{'ETAESI AOFOIS, EI KA MH AFHTAI AAA0E2I. 

XeyoiVTo S' avocyKa,:^<; kch TijAaipicci ^eyat, u<; {/.eTsvovou.eva.v rav \puy^a.y, rccv 

6-/jpiuy accfAccrcCf itort Ko'Ka,(T!,v' ^ayvuv V eq avav vj KCt,T:pav jj^jpcpaq' kov^cov 
8e Kai i^ereapuv, e<; Ttr/jvay aepoTtopccy' apyccv Se kch cc'j:pccKr'xv, ay.ce,9ay re 
Kai avorjray, €<; rccv rav evvlpcov t&eav. De Anima Mundi, in Platonis 
Opp. vol. X. p. 28. With regard to Plato, the principle by 
which he was actuated as a teacher of a future state is plainly 
declared, in the following words of Diogenes Laertius^ to have 
been purely political : Ev le to;? licchoyon; kcci Tvjy ^iKcciocrvyriy 6e<jv 
vofAov vireXccu^ccyev, 'OS lEXTPOTEPAN nPOTFE-^^AI TA AIKAIA 
nPATTEIN, 'INA MH KAI META 0ANATON AIKA2 'THO^XOIEN 
01 KAKOTPrOI. 'O^ev kchi (/.vdiKcorepoq evioi; VT:e},rj(p6'/j, Totq a-vyypxu.- 
fMiG-iv iyKccrcti^i^aq raci; TOiavraq ^iriy/ja-en;, '0nO2 AIA TOT AAHAOT 
TPOnOT TOT EXEIN TA META TON 0ANATON, 'OTTOS AHE- 
XONTAI TON AAIKHMATON, Kai -vavra. y.ev tjv avro) ra apea-Kovra. 
Diog. Laert. iii. §. 79, 80. We shall take occasion to inquire 
further into the real sentiments of both these philosophers in the 
Supplementary^ Remarks. 

^ The genius of Roman legislation in regard to the national 
religion is well illustrated in the following remarkable narrative of 
Lactantius : '' Harum vanitatum apud Romanos autor et consti- 
" tutor Sabinus ille rex fuit^ qui maxime animos hominum rudes 
*' atque imperitos novis superstitionibus implicavit : quod ut fa- 
*' ceret aliqua cum autoritate, siraulavit cum Dea Egeria nocturnes 

K 



130 Origin of the belief in a future state 

then country of which the governors were more en- 
lightened than the governed. Thus, philosophy 
employed the doctrine of future rewards and pu- 
nishments as a tool of government and a curb on 
the passions of the multitude : while, by those who 
most sedulously encouraged that belief, it was in- 
wardly regarded as void of truth, and valuable only 

" se habere congressus. Erat qusedam spelunca peropaca in 
*' nemore Aricino, unde rivus perenni fonte manabat; hue remo- 
** tis arbitris se inferre consueverat, iit mentiri possit, monitu De^ 
** conjugis ea sacra populo se tradere, quae acceptissima Diis 
** essent: videlicet astutiam Minois voluit imitari, qui se in an- 
" trum Jovis recondebat, et ibi diu moratus, leges tanquam sibi a 
" Jove traditas afferebat, ut homines ad parendum non modo im- 
** perio, sed etiam religione constringeret. Nee difficile sane fuit 
** persuadere pastoribus. Itaque pontifices, flamines, salios, au- 
*• gures creavit, Deos per familias descripsit. Sic novi populi fe- 
** roces animos mitigavit, et ad studia pacis a rebus bellicis avoca- 
" vit. Sed cum alios falleret, seipsum tamen non fefellit. Nam 
** post annos plurimos, Cornelio et Bebio Coss. in agro scribae 
*' Petilii sub Janiculo arcae duse lapideae sunt repertae a fossoribus, 
*' quarum in altera corpus Numae fuit, in altera septem Latini 
*' libri de jure pontificio, item Graeci totidem de disci plinasapien- 
" tiae scripti, quibus religmies, non eas modo, quas ipse institueraty 
" sed omnes prceterea dissolvit. Qua re ad Senatum delata, decre- 
*' turn est, ut hi libri abolerentnr : ita cos Q. Petilius prcetor urba- 
" nus in condone populi concremavil.'' Div. Inst. i. 22. Similar 
to this is an equally striking passage in Cicero, de Div. ii.33. He 
is here, though himself an augur, reasoning against the truth of 
divination by augury ; and yet, after declaring the falsehood of 
its pretensions in the strongest terms, he lays down, in a man- 
ner equally strong, the duty of polilical imposture in regard to 
its observance. The reason assigned is, " retinetur et ad opinio- 
*• nein vulgi, et ad magnas utilitatesy On the strength of this 
principle he says, that a Roman commander was justly punished 
with death for the neglect of it. 



among mankind in general 131; 

as a part of the necessary machinery of the state. 
In like manner, the mythology of paganism was em- 
braced with unhesitating credulity by the vulgar, and 
enjoyed, by reason of its supposed political utility, 
the utmost sanction of exterior respect and decent 
observance from the enlightened and great : but 
the latter, though adorned in many cases with the 
most exalted offices of the national religion, con- 
templated its gross absurdity with secret derision 
and contempt. It is peculiar to the religion of 
the holy Scriptures, that it has in all ages impressed 
an equal veneration on the learned and the igno- 
rant. We have no double doctrine here. The 
Gospel, in the fullest extent of its discoveries, is 
preached to the poor. The great mystery of godli- 
ness which it reveals is impartially communicated. 
It disclaims cunningly devised fables", and de- 
nounces the severest punishment on every one that 
maketh a lie^. It has no doctrines but such as 
are worthy of all men to be received : no concealed 
tenets for the few, in contradiction of the prin- 
ciples avowed to the many. Here the statesman 
and the mechanic, the philosopher and the peasant, 
are upon a common footing : by both the way of 
life is embraced with equal faith, humility, and re- 
verence : both are contented to draw their sup- 
plies of spiritual knowledge and refreshment from 
the same well of salvation. The religion which 
the Bible teaches is the only religion which was 
ever sincerely and extensively professed by those 

"2 Pet. i. 16. ^ Rev. xxi. 8,2/, 

K 2 



1 32 Origi7i of the belief in a future state 

who enjoyed the aid of mental improvement to- 
wards the discrimination of truth and error. That 
the Gospel has, indeed, sometimes encountered the 
scorn of infidelity in a cultivated and accomplished 
mind, we do not here deny : nor does the admission 
of the fact call for any laboured or difficult explana- 
tion, since the faith which it prescribes is very 
different from the fruit, or the privilege, of scientific 
and literary eminence. But this we assert : It 
numbers among its adherents multitudes of persons 
distinguished by the largest capacity of genius to- 
gether with the greatest intellectual strength, and 
enriched, beyond the opportunities which ancient 
philosophy could boast, with the collective wisdom 
afforded by many succeeding ages of experience and 
inquiry. Of these it may be truly said, that the 
principles of faith which they professed they have 
conscientiously entertained : they have carried them 
from the public view of the world into the devotion 
of the closet, and have inwardly applied them for 
the direction of life and the consolation of grief. 
This is a striking distinction of the faith which we 
profess, and deserves to be noticed as, at least, a 
characteristic symptom of truth. It particularly 
claims the attention of those, who comprehend in 
one general charge of imposture all the religions 
prevailing in the world. They will find, that the 
same cannot be alleged in favour of any other reli- 
gious system. They will find, that they cannot, 
among the pontiffs, the statesmen, and the philoso- 
phers of paganism, adduce instances, in which the 
religion of the state was professed with the same 



among mankind in general, 133 

sincerity, and with minds as much enlarged and en- 
lightened, as it was in the cases of Butler and Cud- 
worth ; of Clarendon and Hale ; of Newton, Boyle^, 
and Locke. 

But to return from this digression. It is now 
time that we should inquire, in what manner the 
subject of a future state was treated by those 
other philosophical sects which have been hitherto 
unnoticed. 

Of these, the school of Zeno may justly command 
our interest, by reason of that imposing dignity which 
it assumes in some of the most opposite conditions 
of human life : for it reckons among its adherents 
both the philosophic courtier and the stern repub- 
lican ; and the lustre of its doctrines was equally 
sustained in the purple of an emperor and the sor- 
did garments of a slave. The philosophy of the 
Stoics was chiefly remarkable for the contradiction 
of nature, accompanied by the strongest professions 
of a close adherence to it : in this characteristic va- 
nity they will be found to agree, though the opi- 
nions they heldy, and more especially those relating 
to the soul, were remarkably various and contra- 
dictory. In general, they maintained that its sub- 
stance was corporeal^: nevertheless, it was destined 
to continue after death. Such however was the 
whimsical singularity of their doctrine in regard to 
this survival, that we can only illustrate it by the 
similitude of a physician, who, after seeing his pa- 

y Cic. Acad. Quaest. iv. 41. 

^ Diog. Laert. vii. §. 156. Cic. Acad. Quaest. i. 1 1. 
K 3 



134 Origin of the belief iti a future state 

tient past the critical and anxious hour, pronounces 
his case to be desperate when the malady has 
wholly disappeared. For though, according to their 
scheme, the soul was to remain after the dissolution 
of the grosser body, still, its separate duration was 
to be only limited^ : at the conflagration of the world, 
all remaining souls were to be annihilated, and many^ 
according to some opinions, were doomed to extinc- 
tion at an earlier period^. After this conflagration, 
the frame of nature was to revive; the order of things 
and the course of events, which had prevailed in the 
former world, were to be exactly renewed ; virtue 
and vice were to experience the same fortunes, the 
former to be harassed with the same persecutions, 
and the latter to be crowned with the same un- 
merited prosperity^. Here was a future exist- 
ence without a future retribution. Such was the 
Stoical regeneration^ : which, according to the prin- 
ciples of that school, was to recur after equal 
periods of time to all eternity. But there was one 
form in which this doctrine was entertained, with- 
out making any provision for the revival of the 
soul : the actors on the new theatre, as well as the 
scenes belonging to it, being, on this view, not the 
same with those of the former, but perfectly similar 
to them. Thus, Socrates was again to teach philo- 

'' Diog. Laert. vii. §. 156. Cic. Tusc. Disp. i. 32, M. Antonin. 
iv.21. 
*' Diog. Laert. vii. §. 157. 

<= Orig. cont. Cels. iv. 68. Seneca, Ep. 36. Chrysippiis apud 
Lactantiuin, Div. Inst. vii. 23. Diog. Laert. in Zenone. 

•' YlfptohKri TiaXiyyev^Tia. M. AntoniniiSj xi. 1. 



I 



among mankind in general. 135 

sophy at Athens, again to be accused by Anytus 
and Melitus, again vexed by a quarrelsome wife: 
but these were not the same Socrates, the same 
Athens, the same accusers, and the same wife, but 
others exactly resembling them in the most minute 
incidents and qualities^. Future retribution was 
indeed inadmissible on the principles of Stoicism : it 
was contradictory to its other doctrines, and would 
have been an incongruous and unnecessary appen- 
dage to such a system. How could virtue cherish 
the hope of a future reward? since, even in the pre- 
sent life, it was all-sufficient in its own resources to 
the purposes of happiness^; the hardships it was 
called upon to endure were only imaginary^; and 
nothing was really an evil but that which induced a 
moral depravation of the soul ^\ On the other hand, 
where could the fear of future punishment find 
room to operate ? since vice, even in its present 
state, was declared to carry its own punishment 
along with it^; and as to pain and suffering, they 
were evils only in the vulgar and wrong estimation 
of mankind. 

The later Academics, as distinguished from the 
earlier followers of Plato, ought not to be passed 
over in this survey, since they did not deny a future 
state. But as they neither affirmed nor denied any 

^ Orig. cont. Gels. iv. 68. 

f kwa^Kfic, Tj aperr) itpoq ev^cici[Xoviccv. Stoic. Paradoxa. 

s M. Antonin. ii. 11. 

'O oe\%6<pcy [/.Yj TTOiCi a^Opcavoy, Tcac^ av tovto /3<ov ui'6pa'7:ov )(^€ipa) ttot}- 
<T(i€i> ; M. Antonin. ii. 1 1. 
' M. Antonin. ix. 4. 

K 4 



136 Origin of the belief in a future state 

thing, their professed principle embracing a discus- 
sion of all questions and a decision of none^, we 
may content ourselves with compendiously stating 
their character as to this and all other points of phi- 
losophical inquiry, in the words of St. Paul : " Ever 
" learning, and never able to come to the knowledge 
" of the truth \" The same character will apply to 
another sect, whose sceptical principles were car- 
ried to a still greater extent. 

Our present re\dew might be thought defective, 
if it did not embrace a few words of separate regard 
to an individual character, who is justly esteemed 
the most conspicuous ornament of ancient philo- 
sophy. The case of Socrates has been alleged by 
Warburton, as a solitary instance among the ancient 
philosophers, in which the belief of future rewards 
and punishments was sincerely entertained"^; and 
another learned writer seems to intimate, that such 
beUef may, in this instance, have been unassociated 
with those wild and mischievous principles, which, 
in the earlier part of this survey, we stated to be 
always implied in the philosophical doctrine respect- 
ing the immortality of the soul". The truth or 



^ " Academiee disciplina, in qua ignoratio et discitur et do- 
'• cetur." Lact. Div. Inst. " Quorum oratio nihil ipsa judicat, 
" sed habetur in omnes partes." Cic. Tusc. Quaest. v. 29. et 11. 
•♦ Dicendum est ita, nihil ut affirmem, quaeram omnia, dubitans 
" plerumque, et mihi ipse diffidens." De Div. ii. 3. See also 
Acad. Quaest. i. 12. 

1 2 Tim. iii. 7. 

"1 Div. Leg. iii. §. 3. p. 47. and §. 4. p. 195. 

" Brucker. See the quotation in note '', p. 88. of this work. 



among mankind in general, 137 

falsehood of these opinions cannot, however, be de- 
cided by any admissible evidence which separately 
and distinctly applies to the individual. Of his two 
disciples;, from whom we derive our knowledge of 
his character, Xenophon has not been very copious 
or explicit in detailing his precise sentiments on this 
subject : and Plato has given us so much of his own 
fanaticism in the form of his master's discourses, as 
renders it impossible by such a guide to ascertain 
his real opinions. If indeed the latter authority 
were admitted, the question must at once be de- 
cided ; and Socrates must be included in the gene- 
ral censure of ancient philosophy. It may be proper, 
however, to state the reasons which occur in favour 
of his exemption from it. We are to observe then, 
that both the substance and the method of his in- 
structions were in general marked by a striking op- 
position to those of preceding teachers ° : it may there- 
fore be thought reasonable to suppose, that he did 
not, like Plato, philosophize respecting the soul on 
the principles of Thales and Pythagoras. The errors 
of Plato, in regard to this subject, were generated by 
his partiality to metaphysical speculations : whereas, 

° '' Socrates mihi videtur, id quod constat inter omnes, primus 
" a rebus occultis et ah ipsa natura involutiSy in quibus omnes ante 
" eum philosophi occupati fuerunt, avocavisse philosophiam, et ad 
" vitam communem adduxisse : ut de virtutibus et vitiis, omni- • 
" noque de bonis rebus et malis quaereret : cselestia autem vel 
*' procul esse a nostra cognitione censeret, vel, si maxime cognita 
" essent, nihil tamen ad bene vivendum." Cic. Acad. Quaest. 

1. 4. ^Yja-i S' avrov Apicrro^€vo<; yvovroc rrjv (pvcriK'fjv Beapiav [X'/jdev 

-€ivai TTpoq r)[Mic(;, ra tfiiKcc ^iXoo-oi^eiv APHAI. Diog. Laert. in Socr. 



138 Origin of the belief in a future state 

the reasonings and the studies of Socrates were, in 
the latter part of his life at least, purely moral p. It 
may therefore be thought, that the doctrine of a fu- 
ture state would be most approved by him in that 
form, which was best adapted to - strengthen the 
cause of virtue, the professed aim of his instructions ; 
rather than in that of other philosophers, in whose 
systems its moral efficacy was much weakened. On 
these grounds, it may appear probable, that his views 
of a future life would discover a simple acquiescence 
in the common hopes and feelings of mankind ; ac- 
companied however with that improvement, which 
might be expected to result from a more refined mo- 
rality. Having stated these probabilities on one side 
of the question, we must now add, that any con- 
clusion we might draw from them in support of the 
opinions to which we refer, are plainly contradicted 
by the most decided testimonies of antiquity respect- 
ing the doctrine of the soul, as it was entertained 
by the philosophers in general^. If Socrates did not 

i^ See the foregoing note. 

^ The general voice of antiquity declares, that all the philoso- 
])hers who maintained the immortality, maintained also the pre- 
existence of the soul. Lactantius may supply an example : 
" There was none of the philosophers,'' says he, " who understood, 
'* that the soul both had a beginning of existence, and would not 
" have an end." *' Nemo [philosophorum] vidit, et nasci animas 
'* et non occidere." Div. Inst. iii. 18. " They thought the sur- 
" vival imj)ossible, unless the previous existence was granted." 
" Non putaverunt aliter fieri posse, ut supersint animtie post cor- 
•' pora, nisi videantur fuisse ante corpora." Id. Ibid. With re- 
gard to the two other principles wliich declare tlie inmiortality of 
brutes, and the mulinnr^'cablc number of souls, they are necessarily 



among manhind in general. 139 

avowedly concur in these principles, we have the 
fullest reason to believe, that he never attempted to 
disprove, nor even disowned them. After the fullest 
examination, our most probable conclusion will be, 
that his real feelings in regard to this doctrine are 
comprehended and expressed in his general profes- 
sion of universal ignorance and uncertainty : " that 
" he knew but one thing, which was, that he knew 
" nothing." There is a story related of him, which 
favours this conclusion, and indicates that the scep- 
tical turn of his mind discovered itself on this sub- 
ject as well as on others. Being asked, " What is 
" the nature of the place appointed for departed 
" souls ?" he is said to have replied, " I have neither 
" visited it myself, nor met with any of its inha- 
" bitants''." It is however right, in justice to his 

comprised in the doctrine of the preexistence, and corollaries from 
the reasoning by which the latter is deduced. Such being the 
universal character of the philosophical doctrine of the soul, it is 
almost impossible, that, if Socrates had formed an exception to 
it, that exception should have passed unnoticed. On the con- 
trary, the great celebrity of his character must have led to the 
mention of so striking a particular in relation both to the per- 
son and the doctrine. So far then as he philosophically main- 
tained the immortality of the soul, he must have held it together 
with all its philosophical encumbrances. But^, as we have stated, 
the more probable supposition is, that he did not dogmatize at all 
on the subject, but viewed it under the influence of that sceptical 
suspense of judgment which he uniformly professed : *' quod di- 
'* cebat constanter, et in qua sententia permanebat." Cic. Acad. 
Quaest. i. 4. 

£Kei<re tivi avvrervx^Ka. Stobsei Anthol. Serm. cclxxi. p. 8/8. Ed. 
Wecheli. How little he was disposed to assert any thing posi- 



140 Origin of the belief in a future state 

character to observe, that he does not appear to have 
sanctioned the double doctrine : and therefore, what- 
ever countenance he might give to the prospect of a 
future retribution was probably sincere. 

Here we may close the detail of opinions main- 
tained respectively by the ancient schools and teach- 
ers : for though many of them have not yet been 
specified, the remainder may be dismissed with one 
general remark ; they both held and taught, that 
death is the total and final annihilation of human 
existence^. There are however some general fea- 
tures of absurdity and impiety connected with the 
philosophical views of the soul, to omit the mention 

tive on the subject, may appear from his conversation with Hip- 
pias the Elean, related by Xenophon. (Mem. iv.) In this dia- 
logue, Socrates asserts an eternal and unwritten law prescribed by 
Divine authority, in contradistinction from the laws of man. Of 
the former he says, that those who violate its injunctions must in- 
evitably suffer the punishment of their crime : whereas the trans- 
gressors of human laws may possibly escape. One would think, 
that the proof of this proposition could not be made out without 
a future state. Of this however Socrates says not a word, but 
merely contents himself with a lame argument, to shew that the 
punishment of each transgression of the Divine law was an effect, 
naturally resulting, in the present life, from the act of transgression 
itself; as for example, that ingratitude is punished by the deser- 
tion of friends. A style of reasoning, which not only dispenses 
with the necessity of a future state, but even subverts one of the 
most popular grounds of argument in support of it. 

' The case of Aristotle and his followers is regarded by Cud- 
worth as rather dubious : but the writings of that philosopher 
render it sufficiently evident, that he did not maintain the immor- 
tality of the soul in a state of separate personality. See the Suppl. 
Rem, on page 128, line 12. 



among mankind in general. 141 

of which would be inconsistent with our present de- 
sign, though it be not necessary to particularize the 
sects in which we discover them. 

A very prevailing view of this doctrine in the 
philosophy of the ancients was that, in which, to 
employ the language of a late eloquent writer, the 
immortality of the soul was admitted, " only under 
" the idea of a reunion with the nature of the Deity; 
" the great eternal ONE, from whom all souls pro- 
" ceed, and into whose all-comprehending essence 
" they are at death resolved again ; and, like a 
" bubble burst and lost in the parent ocean, are 
" swallowed up in the immensity of God ; and thus 
" all personal identity and separate consciousness 
" are for ever extinguished^." Here the doctrine of 
a future state, as to all the purposes of hope and 
fear, of consolation and virtue, is plainly extinct. 
This, surely, is bad enough : but yet the full magni- 
tude of the impiety and folly involved in this opinion 
will not be disclosed, till we understand that parti- 
cular notion of the Divine nature which frequently 
formed a part of it ; for it supposes the soul, as to 
both its origin and future destiny, to maintain an 
intimate relation with God. This notion was as 
follows. The Deity was regarded as nothing else 
than that principle of vitality and motion which 
pervades the universe ; in which the movement of 
the spheres, the powers and functions of animate 
and inanimate ^creatures, are supposed to originate ; 
and which, according to this system, is itself devoid 

* White's Bampton Lectures, Serm. iii. 



142 Origin of the belief in a future state 

of all the attributes of personality. From the Di- 
vine essence, thus contemplated, the soul was sup- 
posed to emanate at the commencement of the ani- 
mal life, and to be again absorbed into it at death. 
This doctrine is commonly illustrated by comparing 
the soul to a bottle, filled with sea-water and placed 
in the sea : of which the contents, immediately on 
the fracture of the vessel, mingle in the indiscri- 
minate mass of the surrounding element ^. 

As some of the philosophers erred in denying the 
personality of God, the whole of them discovered a 
similar obliquity of judgment in the contemplation 
of his attributes. On this subject, there was a re- 
markable opinion sanctioned by the unanimous voice 

'^ With regard to the notions of both the Deity and the human 
soul which are here described, the reader is referred for further 
authorities and illustration to Cudworth's Intellectual System, c. 
3. ; Warburton's Div. Leg. iii. §.4.; the observations of Brucker 
respecting the atheism of the Stoics, Flist. Phil. vol. i. p. 936. ; 
and Bayle's Dictionary, Art. Spinoza, Rem. A. The two notions 
appear to be combined together in the following passage : 

" Quidquid est hoc, omnia animat, format, alit, auget, crcat, 
" Sepelit, recipitque in sese omnia : omniumque idem est pa- 

" ter : 
" Indidemque eadem, quae oriuntur de integro, atque eodem 

" occidunt." 

Pacuvius apud Cic. de Div. i. 57. 

The following is of the same class, but not quite so bad; since the 
personality of the Deity seems to be acknowledged, and the vital 
principle of nature {a-irepixariKoq Mjoq) to be distinguished from the 
Divine essence : EvuTrco-rvj^ uq jA-epoq' cvMJya.VKTO'fjTri ra yevvvjTavri' y.aX- 
AOJ/ 8e avuXYi(l)6y]Tr] cit; rov y.oyov ccvrov rov a-ir€p[/.fxriKOV Kara, ixeTa^oXvjv. 
M. Antoninus, iv. 14. 



among manhind in general. 143 

of pagan philosophy ; which it is incumbent on us to 
notice^ by reason of the colouring that it must and 
did impart to those views of a future state which 
were entertained in conjunction with it. They rea- 
soned thus : The Deity is void of anger and hatred : 
as such, he cannot be disposed to inflict pain or 
suffering on any who are subject to his power : if, 
therefore, the soul survive the body, it cannot be the 
subject of punishment^. Such was philosophy. It 
abounded in vain distinctions and subtle refinements : 
but it could not discriminate between the vindictive 
passions of man and the righteous judgment of God, 
nor entertain the possibility of punishment without 
malevolence and cruelty in the punisher. This, if 
we regard its intellectual value, can be considered 
little better than the weakest dotage of the mind. 
If we calculate its moral influence, it is plain that 
it must have operated, like those indulgences which 
conveyed the absolution of future as well as past 

^ " Aiunt qiiidara, nee gratificari Deum cuiquam, nee irasei ; 
" sed securum et quietum immortalitatis suae bonis perfrui. Alii 
*' vero iram tollunt, gratiam relinquunt Deo ; naturam enim sum- 
*' ma virtute praestantem, ut non maieficam, sie beneficam esse 
" debere. Ita omnes philosophi de ira consentiunty de gratia dis- 
*' crepant." Lact. de Ira Dei, c. ii. "' Hoc quidem commune est om- 
" nium philosophorum, non eorum modo, qui Deum nihil habere 
" ipsum negotii diciuit, et nihil exhibere alteri : sed eorum etiam, 
'' qui Deum semper agere aliquid et moliri volunt, nunquam nee 
" irasei Deum, nee nocere." Cie. de Off. iii. 28. The general 
principle thus laid down is applied to the subjeet of a future state 
by Mareus Antoninus, in the following words : To e| avOpccivuv cnti.X- 
Bhv, €t ^6!/ ^cot €t(7iv, ovliv Scivov KAKOi TAP SE OTK AN HEPIBA- 
AOIEN. ii. 11. 



144 Origin of the heliefin a future state 

sins, as a charter of impunity to all the evil actions 
and inclinations of men y. 

Before we qviit our present subject, we should 
not omit to remark among the striking features in 
the ancient doctrine of the soul, that hesitation and 
scepticism by which it is generally characterized. 
The nature and the justice of this charge will be ex- 
emplified by a passage from Seneca, who thus en- 
deavours to magnify the honours of philosophy by 
the employment of a topic, which, justly considered, 
proclaims only its disgrace. " Kespecting the soul," 
he observes, " there are questions without number 
" to be discussed. What is its origin ? What is 
" its quality ? When did it begin to exist ? How 
" long will it endure ? Does it migrate from one 
" place to another, and change its abode by succes- 
" sive admissions into the forms of various animals ? 
" Or, does it undergo the corporeal servitude only 
" once, and wander at large in the universe as soon 
" as it is released ? Is it corporeal, or not ? What 
" will be its employments when it shall cease to act 
" through theinstrumentalityof our bodies? How will 

y " Saj)ientis enim est nialefacere, si et utile sit, et tutum : 
" quoniam si quis in coelo Deus est, non irascitur cuiquam." 
Lact. Div. Inst. iii. 17. The passage quoted from Cicero in the 
last note was designed to shew, that perjury might be committed, 
so far as the Deity is concerned, with perfect impunity. Cicero, 
after admitting this doctrine, states the obhgation of an oath to 
consist, not in the prospect of Divine retribution, but in the 
principle of good faith and probity. *' Quod affirmate, quasi 
" Deo teste, promiseris, id tenendum est. Jam enim non ad 
*• iram deorum, qua' nulla est, sed ad justitiam et ad fidem perti- 
" net." De Off. iii. 29. 



among manJcind in general, 1 45 

" it employ its freedom when released from the pre- 
" sent captivity? Will it forget its former know- 
" ledge, and begin for the first time to know itself, 
" when it is abstracted from the body, and with- 
" drawn to the etherial mansions ^ ?" Thus did the 
collected treasures of philosophy, after many ages of 
diligent research, consist only in a rich accumula- 
tion of doubts. Her talent was displayed in proposing 
questions which she could not decide, and in start- 
ing difficulties which she could not obviate. While 
her followers are amused with promises of assistance 
in the pursuit of truth, they are conducted into laby- 
rinths of intricacy and danger, and left in a state of 
painful uncertainty, which had seldom been expe- 
rienced by any but those who had submitted to her 
direction. For, with regard to those who laboured 
most to establish afuture state by rational proof, it may 
be truly said, that neither in themselves nor others 
were their efforts productive of any satisfactory con- 

^ ** Innumerabiles quaestiones sunt de anirno tantum : unde sit, 
*' qualis sit, quando esse incipiat, quamdiu sit : an aliunde alio 
" transeat, et domicilium nmtet, ad alias aniaialium formas, alias- 
" que conjectus : an non amplius quam semel serviat, et emissus 
" vagetur in toto : utrum corpus sit, an non sit : quid sit factu- 
" rus, cum per nos aliquid facere desierit : quomodo libertate sua 
'' usurus, cum ex hac effugerit cavea : an obiiviscatur priorum, et 
" illic nossese incipiat, postquam de corpore abductus in sublime 
" recessit." Ep. 88. To the same effect Cicero: '' Teneniusne 
" quid animus sit r ubi sit ? denique, sitne, aut ut Dicaearcho 
" visum est, ne sit quidem ulkis ? si est : tresne partes habeat, ut 
" Platoni placuit, rationis, irae, cupiditatis ; an simplex, unusque 
'* sit ? si unus et simplex, utrum sit ignis, an anima, an sanguis ? 
" an, ut Xenocrates, mens nuUo corpore r quod intelligi, quale 
** sit, vix potest. Et, quicquid est, mortal e sit an aeternum ? 
'• nam utramque in partem multadicuntur." Acad. Qusest. iv. 39. 

I. 



146 Origin of the belief in a future state 

viction, and scarcely of any practical effect in the 
regulation of life ^ If you would, anywhere among 
mankind, discover the evidence of this conviction 
and of this influence, you will find it chiefly among 
those uncultivated savages by whom the traditional 
doctrine was implicitly embraced without inquiry ; 
but you will search for it in vain among the great 
masters of reason and learning. As an example of 
this, we may refer to the concluding words in Plato's 
defence of Socrates before his judges : " We now 
" depart each to his respective destination, you to 
" live, and I to die : but which of these is the bet- 
" ter, no mortal can declare^." Another philoso- 
phical inquirer is presented to us by Cicero, as ex- 
pressing himself thus with regard to the celebrated 
dialogue of Plato^ of which we have given an ab- 
*' stract : I know not how it happens : but while I 
" am reading, I acquiesce ; when I lay aside the 
" book and reflect on the subject within myself, my 
** conviction wholly expires^." 

We have thus traced those great outlines, which 
may serve to represent the form and character of 
the prospects, which Gentile wisdom taught man- 
kind to entertain in relation to a future life. It 
will not be difficult to settle the just amount of praise 
which is due to such instructions. Philosophy was 
extolled by Plato as the noblest gift that Heaven had 
conferred, or could confer, upon men ^ : but the re- 

« See the Supplementary Remarks. 
^ Platonis Apol. Socr. ad fin. 
<^ Tusc. Quaest. i. 11. 

*' Ov [Jt-ei^ov ayaOov ovt^ ffKBiv ovG* rj^ci TroTf t^ Oi'VjTtp yev€i ^upvj$(v (k 
$(uv. In Timaeo, Opp. vol. ix. p. 338. 



among mankind in general. 147 

view which we have now taken will surely give us 
reason to prefer a very different estimate of its value 
by a Christian writer, who, after an examination si- 
milar to our own, eloquently deplores the degradation 
of the human mind in the production of such fri- 
volous conceits, and commiserates the weakness of 
those who could perpetuate by literary recprds the 
memory of their folly. " O ingenia hominibus indig- 
" na, quae has ineptias protulerunt ! miseros atque 
" miserabiles, qui stultitiam suam Uteris memoriaeque 
" mandaverunt ^ !" Surely, the marks of a distem- 
pered and reprobate mind are more visible in these 
speculations, than any indications which tend to exalt 
the dignity of reason and of nature : and the cha- 
racter of those pagan teachers by whom such spe- 
culations were entertained may be correctly gathered 
from the words of sacred truth : " Professing them- 
" selves to be wise, they became fools." 

" It is impossible," says Cicero, " to express any 
" absurdity however great, which has not been main- 
" tained by some philosopher ^." Our foregoing 
observations will furnish illustration of this remark. 
" A stronger proof," says Warburton ?, " of the ne- 
" cessity of the Gospel of Jesus Christ cannot, I 
'' think, be given than this, that the sages of 
" Greece, with whom all the wisdom of the world 
" was supposed to be deposited, had philosophized 
" themselves out of the most evident and useful 
" truth with which mankind hath any concern." 

The result of this inquiry may well serve to re- 

" Lact. Div. Inst. vi. 10. 

' DeDiv. ii.58. 

i Div. Leg. iii. §.4. p. 201. 



148 Origin of the belief in a future state 

press the arrogance of philosophy, to moderate the 
undue praises, and to discover the real impotence, 
of that faculty, which is so frequently extolled, as 
a competent guide in pursuing the paths of truth, 
of duty, and of happiness. Whether the unassisted 
reason of man be adequate to these necessary pur- 
poses, may best be determined by a reference to 
those great lights of pagan antiquity, whose splen- 
dor has for so many ages dazzled the admiration of 
mankind : and the sum of their performances and 
pretensions may, without the least injustice to them, 
be stated as follows : " Whatever religious truths 
" they possessed, these they obtained, not from ra- 
** tional inquiry, but from instruction. But as to 
" the depravation of these truths (a character plainly 
" discoverable throughout the whole tenor of their 
" philosophy and theology) here they are justly 
" chargeable. Whenever they attempted to demon- 
" strate or explain their opinions, they perverted 
" and corrupted them, and the more they commented 
" upon truth, the more did they deprave it^\" 

From the failure of the effort, we are surely war- 
ranted in deducing the inadequacy of the power. 
For, according to the just observation of Dr. Ellis, 
" that reason should perform that, which in its ut- 
" most perfection and its most vigorous exercise 
'' it never did perforin, is scarcely to be distinguished 
" from an impossibility. Nature is regular in her 
" actings, and suffers not her powers to lie useless : 
" never to do a thing, and not to have power to do 
'* it, are witli her equivalent terms '." 

'' Finis's Knowlcilge of Divine Things. 
' Ibid. 



among mankind in general. 149 

We are indeed in the habit of viewing the ra- 
tional faculty by a deceitful light. Pagan philo- 
sophy has long enjoyed the veneration of mankind 
by a prescriptive, not a just, title. Under the in- 
fluence of this feeling, we are apt to judge both of 
its own performances and of the capacities of our 
nature. But if we will acquaint ourselves with the 
truth, and frame our judgment agreeably to it, the 
result will teach us, not the inherent dignity, but 
the real blindness and corruption of the human 
soul. Such is our universal malady : which, like 
other diseases, is most fatal when it is least alarm- 
ing, because the patient is then beguiled from the 
application of his proper remedy by a false confi- 
dence of health and vigour. We will therefore con- 
clude our present inquiry with those remarkable 
words of our Redeemer, which both declare the na- 
ture of our present condition, and prescribe the only 
means of our recovery : " Because thou sayest, I am 
" rich, and increased with goods, and have need of 
" nothing ; and knowest not that thou art wretched, 
" and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked : I 
" counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, 
" that thou mayest be rich ; and white raiment, that 
" thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy 
" nakedness do not appear ; and anoint thine eyes 
" with eyesalve, that thou mayest see^^" 

^ Rev. iii. 17, 18. 



L 3 



150 The disbelief of a future state would fiof 

SECTION II. 

The silence of the Mosaic law would have no tendency/ to 
eradicate from the mind of the Israelite that belief in 
a future state ^ which, independently of that law, he woidd 
have entertai7ied in common with the rest of the world. 

THE universal and constant prevalence among 
mankind of the belief in a future state, with the 
single exception of one people, has been not only 
acknowledged, but satisfactorily proved, by the 
learned Warburton. To the propriety of that ex- 
ception we have already objected on a strong, though 
very general, ground of argument. We now pro- 
pose to bestow on it a more detailed examination. 

It has been the purpose of our own remarks in 
the foregoing section to shew, that this universality 
must have originated in the special will and ap- 
pointment of God, and that it can have been pri- 
marily derived from no other source than Divine re- 
velation. We are now to examine the validity of 
those principles, by which, as to the point at issue, 
this nation is distinguished from all others. For 
unless those principles can be maintained, the case 
of the Israelites will obviously fall within the opera- 
tion of the general cause to which we have attri- 
buted the introduction and diffusive prevalence of 
this belief : and it will be also comprehended under 
the general design of Providence in propagating 
such belief among men. 

It is contended, then, that the Israelites could 
have no knowledge of a future state, because Moses 
omitted to teach that doctrine ^ We maintain, on 

' See tlic note, page 23 of" this work. 



be occasioned by the omission of the Law. 151 

the other hand, the true state of the case to be this : 
They would both have and cherish a belief of that 
doctrine, because Moses omitted to contradict it. 

It forms a necessary part of the theory against 
which we contend, that this nation should be re- 
garded as participating, till the time of Moses, in 
the common sentiments of mankind on this subject"^ : 
for it is plain that their alleged ignorance, which is 
supposed to have been the peculiar consequence of 
their law, could not have existed before that law was 
given. 

Now let it be observed, that this law required of 
the Israelites, in general, an abandonment of every 
principle and practice of false religion : and, in par- 
ticular, every such principle and practice to which 
that people lay more particularly exposed, is therein 
distinctly specified and condemned. Consider, then, 
the situation of the Israelite when first he became 
the subject of a peculiar covenant. We grant, that 
he would find in that covenant no explicit assurance 
of future rewards and punishments : but it is, at 
least, equally certain, that he would find in it no 
contradiction of that doctrine. Where then would 
be his inducement to discard his former sentiments 
and hopes ? He would view the code of his nation 
as a system of declared and irreconcileable hostility 
to every species of religious error : he would find the 
various false tenets and superstitious observances of 
his idolatrous neighbours enumerated and condemned 
in it : all and each of these he would find himself 

™ It is admitted by Warbiirton, that till this time, they *' must 
** needs be much prejudiced in favour of so reasonable and flat- 
" tering a doctrine." Div. Leg. vi. §, 6. vol. vi. p. 125. 

L 4 



152 The disbelief of a future state would not 

distinctly enjoined to renounce : but he would not 
find the doctrine of future rewards and punishments 
in the number of them. Under such circumstances, 
silence must have been a confirmation, rather than a 
discouragement, of his belief. He would naturally 
infer the doctrine to be true, because Moses had not 
declared it to be false : for he could never imagine 
that Iiis lawgiver would have passed over, as be- 
neath his notice, that which is confessedly the most 
important and the most operative of all religious 
principles whatever. 

" We might naturally expect," says Mr. Gibbon, 
" that a principle so essential to religion would have 
" been revealed in the clearest terms to the chosen 
** people of Palestine'^." We grant that such expec- 
tation is natural : because among other instances of 
that moral and intellectual corruption which belong 
to the fallen nature of man, we often find, that a bold 
presumption in judging of matters which we do not 
understand is more congenial to our pride, than a 
humble confession of ignorance and a patient in- 
quiry after truth. But if by " the clearest terms" 
we are to understand any degree of clearness be- 
yond that which has actually been afforded, as the 
purpose of this writer implies ; then we must stre- 
nuously contend, that such expectation, however 
natural, is by no means reasonable. 

For those explicit terms, of which the insertion 
would, in the o[)inion of this writer, have been so ad- 
vantageous in the structure of the Mosaic law, could 
not have been employed consistently with the proper 

° Decline an»l P'all of the Roman Empire, c. 15. 



he occasioned hy the omission of the Law. 153 

design of that law. They would also have contra- 
vened the estimate of that design which the Israelites 
were intended to frame, and which they naturally 
w ould frame on a view of its present provisions. 

The primary object of the Mosaic economy was, 
as Warburton justly expresses it, " to preserve the 
*' memory of the one true God in an idolatrous world 
" till the coming of Christ." Such is the notion 
which we, aided by evangelical light and subsequent 
discovery, justly entertain of the purpose contem- 
plated in a preparatory dispensation. With regard 
to the immediate subjects of that economy, though 
they could not so well estimate its relative design, 
they would at least understand, what they were 
taught by many unequivocal declarations of the Pen- 
tateuch, that its leading object was, to maintain the 
honour and worship of the only true God to the ex- 
clusion of every false and pretended object of adora- 
tion. How was this end to be accomplished ? Could 
the honour of the true God have been maintained 
by promulgating the sanction of a future and in- 
visible retribution? The nature of the case demanded 
the employment of very different means : it called 
for a present and sensible evidence. 

" The superiority of the true God," says Dr. 
Graves, " could never be established by a compa- 
" rison of his power in the distribution of future 
** and invisible rewards and punishments ; it was 
" only by proving decisively, that he, and he alone, 
" was the dispenser of every blessing and every cala- 
" mity in the present life, and that he distributed 
" them with the most consummate justice, yet tem- 
" pered with mercy, that he could completely ex- 



154 The disbelief of a future state would not 

" pose, and for ever discredit the pretensions of 
** idolatry^." 

Under the apparently promiscuous allotments of 
Providence, and under that deficiency of religious 
light which was inseparable from the earlier progress 
of revelation, there had grown up, at the time of the 
delivery of the law, an almost universal ignorance 
and infidelity in regard to the proper object of re- 
ligious worship. These the Divine wisdom (among 
other preparatory measures adopted in subserviency 
to the final purpose of man's redemption) judged it 
right to dissipate, in the case of a peculiar nation, 
by sensible interpositions and manifestations of the 
Divine power and attributes. To this end Moses, 
for the evidence of his authority, appeals to the 
mighty hand and the stretched out arm : he pro- 
vides the requisite sanction of his laws, by declaring 
the continual interposition of the Deity in the go- 
vernment of the commonwealth of Israel ; by pro- 
mising a present reward for obedience ; and by de- 
nouncing a present punishment on transgression. 

On this peculiar basis the authority of the law 
was professedly established: and it is plain, that 
the sanction of a future state could never have been 
substituted in its place. For, how could a distinc- 
tion have been provided between true and false re- 
ligion by the employment of a doctrine which was 
common to all the religions of the world ? How 
could a sensible evidence have been provided by an 
appeal to that which was distant and invisible ? 

The principles for which we contend being well 

" Lectures on the Four last Books of tlie Pentateuch, P. iii. 
Lcct. iii. p. 1 ^2. 



he occasioned by the omission of the Law. 155 

understood by the people of Israel, the present 
structure of their law in regard to a future state 
could have generated no surprise ; much less could 
it have induced a disbelief of that doctrine. 

But might not the doctrine of a future state have 
been superadded, as an auxiliary to the sanction of a 
present retribution ? We answer, that this doctrine 
would always subsist in union with it. Our reasons 
for maintaining that it would, will be stated in the 
following section. But we contend, that it could 
not have been employed as an auxiliary sanction to 
the Mosaical law, without weakening the force of 
that sanction which was actually employed, and 
which the nature of the case demanded. For, might 
not the lawgiver of Israel have appeared, in this 
case, as if he were distrustful of the future course of 
events, lest it might not verify his predictions of 
temporal reward and punishment ? Might it not 
have been said, that he had employed a future state 
for the purpose of obviating the detection of a con- 
scious fraud ? Such was the insinuation of an athe- 
istical writerP, with regard to the doctrine of a future 
state, as it forms a part of the general system of re- 
vealed religion : but such a suspicion could never, in 
the mind of an Israelite, be connected with the ex- 
isting structure and provisions of the Law. 

We have seen, that the belief of a future state was 
entertained by the chosen people in common with 

P Vanini, quoted by Warburton, Div. Leg. v. note [Y], He 
says, that the promises and threats of religion are made to apply 
to a future life, lest the imposture should be detected : ** Bona- 
*' rum et malarum actionum reproniissiones pollicetur, in futura 
" iamen vita, nefraus detegi possit.'' 



156 The dishelief of a future state would not 

other nations, till the time when they were sepa- 
rated from the bulk of mankind into a distinct po- 
lity under the government of a peculiar law. The 
question is : How could such belief vanish from their 
minds ? Why should they now surrender those 
pleasing hopes and fond desires, to which human na- 
ture is found, in general, so tenaciously to adhere ? 
We are answered : They would no longer believe 
that doctrine, because Moses omitted to teach it. 
This is the first reason : and this we have now con- 
sidered. A second may be stated as follows. The 
general expectation of a future state is framed on 
the ground of those considerations which are sug-" 
gested by the present inequalities of Providence : 
but the chosen seed were under an extraordinary 
providence, and therefore the grounds of such be- 
lief could not occur to them : they would therefore 
discard the sentiment, and more especially when 
they found that their law had made no express dis- 
coveries respecting it. 

We grant then, that the ordinary providence of 
the world is characterized by great inequality : we 
admit, that this inequality, if rightly viewed, fur- 
nishes strong confirmation to the belief of future re- 
wards and punishments : we also admit, that the 
providence which governed the temporal affairs of 
the chosen seed was an extraordinary providence. 
But this, we contend, would in no degi^ee nullify the 
general grounds for the belief of a future state. For 
in order to prove that it would, it is necessary to 
shew, that this peculiar system of Divine govern- 
ment was not only an extraordinary, but an equal, 
providence. Thus indeed the matter is represented 



be occasioned by the omission of the Law, 157 

by Warburton, by whom the words extraordinary 
providence and equal providence are constantly em- 
ployed as equivalent terms ^. I cannot hesitate to 
say, that the argument thus employed carries in 
it an egregious fallacy ; and the fallacy consists in 
confounding the ideas of difference and contrariety. 
If the extraordinary providence of the Israelites 
differed from the ordinary providence of the world 
in general, it does not follow that the former must 
be equal because the latter is unequal. The sub- 
stance of the reasoning framed upon this assumption 
I have given above : but it may be more satisfac- 
tory to present it in the words of that distinguished 
writer, from whom on this point I am compelled to 
differ. 

" While God exactly distributed his rewards and 
'' punishments here, the hght of reason directed men 
" to look no further for the sanctions of his laws. 
" But when it came to be seen that he was not al- 
" ways a rewarder and a punisher here, men neces- 
" sarily concluded, from his moral attributes, that he 
" would be so hereafter: and consequently, that this 
" life was but a small portion of the human dura- 
" tion. In this manner was a future state 

^ '• I used, throughout my whole discourse of the Jewish 

" economy, the words extraordinary providence and equal provi- 
" dence as equivalent terms." Note [A A.] to book v. of the Div. 
Leg. As an example, we may take the following : " We have 
*' shewn at large, in the first three books, that under a common or 
*' unequal providence, civil government could not be supported 
" without a religion teaching a future state of reward and punish- 
*' ment. And it is the great purpose of this work to prove, that 
" the Mosaic religion wanting that doctrine, the Jews must really 
" have enjoyed that equal providence, under which holy Scripture 



158 The disbelief of a future state would not 

" brought, by natural light, into religion : and from 
" thenceforth became a necessary part of it. But 
" under the Jewish theocracy, God was an exact 
** re warder and punisher here. Natural light there- 
" fore evinced, that under such an administration, 
" the subjects of it did not become liable to future 
" punishments till this sanction was known amongst 
" them ''." 

The equal providence of the Jews has, indeed, 
become a familiar term of theology : but if I mistake 
not, the notion conveyed by such language will be 
found upon examination to have no existence in 
reality, nor any countenance from scripture. The 
sequel will illustrate the danger which arises from 
first calling a thing by a wrong name, and then 
reasoning about it. 

It was, as we have already stated, the great ob- 
ject of the Israelitish economy to maintain the ho- 
nour of the one true God, and to silence the pre- 
tensions of polytheism and idolatry. The means 
employed for the attainment of this end consisted in 
continued interpositions of Divine power, for the 
purpose of evincing and attesting, in the visible re- 
tribution of both obedience and transgression, the 
real existence, the unity, and attributes of God. 
These interpositions were carried into effect in 
such a manner as fully to answer the purpose we 
have now described. But that they displayed an 

" represents them to have lived : and then, no transgressor 
*' escaping punishtnent, nor any observer of the law missing his re- 
" vaard^ human affairs might be kept in good order without the 
" doctrine of a future state." Book v. §. 5. p. 164. 
' Div. Leg. Appendix to B. v. p. 227,229. 



be occasioned by the omission of the Law, 159 

allotment of temporal good and evil, so equal and 
exact that nothing was left to be rectified in a fu- 
ture state ; this neither was, nor could be, the fact. 
It is historically false, and it involves contradiction 
and impossibility in itself. 

It belongs essentially to the notion of a provi- 
dence administered on such principles, that it should 
frequently inflict a sudden and premature destruction 
on the wicked. Now it cannot be disputed that this 
would in many instances be attended with aggravated 
hardship and suffering to the virtuous and obedient : 
and if so, it would change, and perhaps even mul- 
tiply, but certainly not obviate, the present ap- 
pearances of inequality. The interests of good and 
bad men are, in the present state of things, ne- 
cessarily interwoven together, like the roots of wheat 
and of tares in a field. In the parable which our 
Lord delivered on this subject ^ we find that the 
servants of the householder proposed to gather up 
the tares : but the householder replies, " Nay; lest 
" while ye gather up the tares, ye root up also the 
" wheat with them." We may from hence learn 
one reason why Divine justice does not always im- 
mediately execute sentence on an evil work : it is, 
because such a proceeding would tend to aggravate 
the distresses of those, whom the mercy of God is 
pleased to regard as objects of favour rather than of 
punishment*. Yet we are to observe, that such 

' Matt. xiii. 

* See a discourse on this subject in *' Sermons by Charles 
" Wheatly, Author of the Illustration of the Book of Common 
" Praver." 



160 The disheliefofafuture state would not 

aggravated distress would often be the necessary 
effect of that peculiar government which the Deity 
exercised over the people of Israel : for there, the 
sudden punishment of the wicked was frequently in- 
flicted in a remarkable manner, so as to involve in 
it the suffering of those, who, in regard to that par- 
ticular crime which provoked the Divine vengeance, 
were wholly unoffending. How then could it be 
said, that the present inequalities of providence were 
in this case taken out of sight? or that the hopes 
which we are apt to connect with the observation of 
them would in this case be annulled? 

If we would inquire into the matter historically, 
we shall find the same truth established on the most 
decided evidence. So far was the condition of the 
Israelites from exhibiting an equal distribution of 
temporal good and evil, that it was on the contrary 
characterized by circumstances of peculiar inequality, 
which are not to be met with in the case of any 
other people. There is no other nation as to whom 
we find that it was a declared principle of the Divine 
government, to include the suffering of the innocent 
in the punishment of the guilty : yet this was a de- 
clared principle of that peculiar government, which 
God himself administered as the political chief and 
ruler of Israel. To the subjects of that common- 
wealth, in distinction from all the other families of 
the earth, he was made known as a God " who visits 
" the sins of the fathers on the children." As a ge- 
neral rule of the Divine government, this mode of 
punishing transgression was confined to this single 
nation, and among them limited to the very time in 



he occasioned by the omission oj the Law. 161 

which Warburton supposes them to have been with- 
out the doctrine of future rewards and punish- 
ments". 

To such a system inequalities would necessarily 
belong. Nor can it be thought, that they would be 
of such rare occurrence, as never to strike the atten- 
tion or engage the thoughts of men. For the prin- 
ciple on which they were founded was not only ac- 
knowledged, but complained of. That " the way of 
" the Lord is not equal," was a generally prevailing 
murmur against the Divine dispensations : and the 
instance of inequality alleged is thus expressed; 
" The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the chil- 
" dren's teeth are set on edge^." Surely this was 
the language of a people peculiarly struck with those 
appearances, which afford, in common estimation, so 
conclusive a topic for the proof of a future state. 

It is to be observed, that this complaint does not 
occur till a late period in the history of the Is- 
raelites. How is this to be explained ? for the state 
of things to which it refers had all along prevailed 
from the very foundation of their commonwealth, 
and was, indeed, the necessary effect of a declared 
principle in the Divine administration of it. The 
following appears to be the most reasonable account 
of the matter. The period to which we refer was 
distinguished by an extreme and widely prevailing 
corruption of that people : for both the national ini- 

" That is, from the giving of the Law to the captivity of .Tudah. 
In the Law itself the rule is first declared, Exod. xx. 5. : about 
the time of the captivity the abrogation of it is foretold by Jere- 
miah and announced by Ezekiel. Jer. xxxi. 29. Ezek. xviii. 3. 

^ Ezek. xviii. 

M 



162 The disbelief of a future state would not 

quity and the Divine forbearance had nearly reached 
their utmost point, and the storm of vengeance, which 
had long been gathering with the increase of their pro- 
vocations, was ready to burst on their heads. In such 
a condition of society, the disbelief of a future state, 
having a natural tendency to harmonize with the 
prevailing manners, might probably be for the first 
time embraced as a popular sentiment ^r for it is a 
sentiment which finds a congenial soil chiefly in the 
heart which hates to be reformed, and which would 
gladly dismiss the terrors of a prospect of which it 
has forfeited the consolation. Thus, by the prevail- 
ing impiety of the time and people, and by the infi- 
delity which it would generate, was probably occa- 
sioned the first introduction of this complaint against 
the equity of the Divine proceedings : since it is 
plain, that the doctrine of a future state at once ob- 
viates every harsh appearance, and every ground of 
discontent, in the system of punishing the parent in 
the sufferings of his issue. Yet it is about this very 
time that Warburton supposes the doctrine of a fu- 
ture state to have first emerged into general preva- 
lence among this people : a time which might with 
greater justice be regarded as the era, which gave 
birth to those monstrous principles of infidelity, 
which, in a subsequent age, became the avowed 
tenets belonging to the heresy of the Sadducees. 
With regard to the allotments of temporal good 

y " Crassam istam de animae mortalitate haeresin, in populum 
** Israeliticum turn demiim introductam probabile est, cum et pie- 
" tas et notitia Dei apud ipsos imminui coepta, ac rerum coeles- 
** tiiim cura terrestrium posthabita." Pococke. Notae Misc. in 
Portam Mosis, p. 161. vol. i. of his works, ed. 1740. 



be occasioned by the omission of the Law. 163 

and evil under the extraordinary providence, we 
may admit, that they were dispensed on a system of 
regularity, and that they were exempted from those 
appearances of a promiscuous dispensation which 
characterize the general face of human affairs : but 
they were by no means exempted from those in- 
equalities on which we are accustomed to ground 
the expectation of a future life. This will be evi- 
dent, from examining more attentively the essential 
principle, by which this peculiar form of the Divine 
government was distinguished from the more pre- 
vailing mode of its exercise. 

In observing the general administration of pro- 
vidence, we are not warranted in regarding cala- 
mities in the light of punishments specially inflicted 
on those whom they befall, nor in construing them 
as an evidence or a penal consequence of individual 
guilt : because we know that the moral adminis- 
tration of the Deity is not conducted on such a 
principle. " Suppose ye," says our Lord, " that 
" these Galileans were sinners above all the Gali- 
" leans, because they suffered such things ? I tell 

" you, Nay. Or those eighteen, upon whom the 

" tower in Siloam fell, and slew them, think ye that 
" they were sinners above all men that dwelt in Je- 
'^ rusalem ? I tell you. Nay ^ ." But while the theo- 
cracy of the Israelites was in its vigour, the case was 
very different : and the subjects of that government 
were obliged to regard many of the calamities they 
witnessed, whether private or national, in the light 
of punishments. The fact is, that in the latter case 

^ Luke xiii. 
M 2 



164 The dish elief of a future state would not 

these calamities were judicially inflicted, and wore 
the complexion of legal penalties. The law ex- 
plicitly denounced them. When they happened, the 
law also indicated the reason of their occurrence ; 
and that reason was in many cases confirmed by a 
special revelation of the Divine purpose which had 
been contemplated in them. The judicial function 
was exercised by God : but the principle of it was 
the same with that of human judicature. With re- 
gard to the latter, it would be absurd to say, that it 
operates to remove the inequalities connected with 
the present circumstances of good and bad men. 
On the contrary, it will, in numberless instances, be 
found to multiply them. A guilty parent, for ex- 
ample, is carried off prematurely by the sentence of 
the law : and the consequence is, that a numerous 
family are plunged into the deepest anguish and 
disgrace, though they may possibly have been wholly 
unoffending, or even highly virtuous. Thus, one is 
overtaken by a just punishment, and many are in- 
volved in unmerited suffering. Now it cannot be de- 
nied, that similar effects must necessarily and essen- 
tially flow from every judicial system, howsoever it 
may be administered : and with regard to that which 
God himself exercised over the Israelites by an ex- 
traordinary providence, it was so far from obviating 
these inequalities, that it positively and professedly 
employed them as an effectual means of strength- 
ening the authority of the Divine law. 

A few examples may here be properly adduced 
for the proof and illustration of these remarks. In 
the war against the Canaanites, Achan secreted a 
part of the si)oil of Jericho. The crime was that of 



be occasiofied hy the omission of the Law. 165 

an individual; but the " anger of the Lord was 
'' kindled against the children of Israel,'' and their 
army was punished with a defeat by the enemy. 
And, when the offender is brought to light, his whole 
family, though nothing is said which charges them 
with being accessary to his guilt, are involved in the 
same destruction with himself^. The sin of David 
in numbering the people was punished by the de- 
struction of seventy thousand persons : but these 
persons were so far from being implicated in the 
act of their sovereign, that the offender himself 
says, with regard to them, " Lo, I have sinned, 
" and I have done wickedly : but these sheep, what 
'' have they done ^?" The apostasy of Jeroboam was 
punished by the death of his son : and the son was 
especially selected as the subject of a premature 
death, by reason of those very qualities which en- 
joyed the Divine approbation^. The idolatry of 
Solomon was punished in the calamities of his son's 
reign ^. I will only add, that the principle was 
maintained in cases of reward, as well as of punish- 
ment. Of this Solomon was himself an example : 
for the judgment which his sin had provoked was 
suspended during his own life, as the reward of his 
father's piety ^. 

In these instances, the nature of the extraordi- 
nary providence is so illustrated, as at once to con- 
firm our description of it, and to make it evident, 
that such an administration could never operate to 
veil the prospect of a future life. Temporal bless- 



"* Josh. vii. 


^ 2 Sam. xxiv. ^ 1 Kings xiv. 


13. 


« 1 Kings xi. 1 r. 


^ 1 Kings xi. 12. 
M 3 





166 The disheliefofafuture state would not 

ings and calamities are here dispensed by special 
and manifest interpositions on a declared principle 
of judicial retribution. Like the public proceedings 
of correctis^e justice, they have an obvious reference 
to the conduct which occasioned them.- Like them 
also, they declare the authority of the ruler and 
judge. In this, we contend, the providence of the 
Israelites differed from the ordinary providence of 
mankind. But this, as we also discover from those 
striking examples which have just been adduced, 
would not obviate, but rather increase, the present 
inequalities belonging to the dispensation of tempo- 
ral good and evil. The reasoning, therefore, in fa- 
vour of a future state, which we are accustomed to 
frame on the gi'ound of these inequalities, would be 
left, in the case of the Israelites, in its unimpaired 
strength: and the extraordinary providence by which 
they w^ere governed would never operate in conjunc- 
tion with the reserve of their law, to the suppression 
of that doctrine. 

Under such a system of things, the manifest in- 
terference of God for the reward of obedience would 
be striking and influential wherever it was known : 
and the judgments of his severity would be the more 
alarming, and therefore the more operative, because 
the innocent would often be involved in the same 
destruction with the guilty. Such an administration 
would therefore be fully effectual to the purpose which 
was contemplated in it : namely, that of maintaining 
the honour of the true God by continual interposi- 
tions of his power in conformity with the declara- 
tions of his law. Nor would the inequalities thus 
occasioned in any degree derogate from the truth 



be occasioned by the omission of the Law. 167 

and authority of a system which professed the mani- 
fest retribution of obedience and transgression : be- 
cause these cases of inequality formed a part of the 
sanction of the Law itself^ and the denunciations of 
the Lawgiver were so framed^ as to convey an as- 
surance that they would frequently arise. 

God is the author of everlasting life. In this cha- 
racter he stands related to all mankind. But .:*-his is 
not the character in which he stood peculiarly re- 
lated to the seed of Jacob. To them, exclusively, 
he was made known as the dispenser of temporal re- 
wards and punishments. In this character he acted, 
as the pohtical head and ruler of their national go- 
vernment. The peculiar nature of that government, 
and the station which God was pleased to fill in it^, 
would both concur, to produce an expectation of no- 
thing further than temporal rewards and punish- 
ments, as the sanction of those ordinances by which 
they were governed : for political sanctions are al- 
ways of this nature ^. But this would in no degree 
tend to annihilate the belief of those other rewards 
and punishments, which are more accordant with 
the universal relation subsisting between him and 
the whole race of mankind : nor Avould it sup- 
press the anticipation of any proceedings which he 

^ ** Deo visum est, inter Israelitas regis politici nomen et per- 
** sonam sumere, et omnia ad morem principis secularis in regno 

** illo administrare. Cum leges suas dedit, subditos ejus, {prin- 

*' cipum secularium ritu) praemiis et poenis vitam hanc caducam 
** solummodo qfficientibuSy ad earum obedientiam sollicitavit : nam 
*' prcemium cceleste proponere, personcB regis civilis quam Deiis ac- 
** ceperat, parum convenire vldehatur." Spencer de Legibus Ri- 
tualibus Hebrseorum, lib. i. cap.iv. p. 45. ed. 1727. 

M 4 



168 The disbelief of a future state would not 

might be expected to adopt as the judge of the 
whole earth. Yet I see not how this consequence 
could have been avoided, if eternal life had been the 
sanction of the Law : for in that case it Avould have 
been an obvious conclusion, that all but the subjects 
of the Mosaical economy were shut out from that 
transcendent benefit. 

It in hardly necessary to add, that though the no- 
tion of an equal providence over the Israelites were 
admitted, it would never warrant the inference which 
is drawn from it. Even on this supposition, they 
must have had as much reason to believe a future 
state as any other people had. How could it be 
otherwise, unless they were persuaded that the same 
exact and equal administration had prevailed in all 
past ages, and was actually in force among all other 
nations ? But the contrary of this would appear, 
both from the sacred records they possessed, and 
from their own observation : and they well knew 
the extraordinary providence (whatever character 
might belong to it in regard to the subject of our 
present discussion) to be restricted and peculiar to 
their own theocratical polity. If indeed the disbe- 
lief of a future state had been the consequence of 
this theocratical government, it must have discovered 
itself in the form of an inference which applied ex- 
clusively to themselves ; they must have regarded 
themselves only as shut out from the hope of a fu- 
ture life, for among them only did that government 
exist : a monstrous supposition, as it applies to a 
nation, who were taught to consider themselves emi- 
nently favoured. The absurdity involved in it can 
only be equalled, by supposing them to have reasoned 



he occasioned by the omission of the Law. 169 

thus : Because we receive our rewards and punish- 
ments here, therefore the rest of mankind can have 
no reason to expect them hereafter. 

Such are the reasons on which we ground our 
conclusion, that the silence or reserve of the law of 
Moses would not tend to efface from the minds of 
the Israelites their belief of a future retribution. 
These reasons it was necessary to state, for the pur- 
pose of clearing away obstructions from the path on 
which we are about to enter : but the inference we 
deduce from them will be most powerfully corrobo- 
rated by the considerations which we shall offer in 
the following section. 

It was the object of a former part of this treatise 
to shew, that a more explicit announcement of a fu- 
ture state in the Law would have been inconsistent 
with the purpose of the Gospel, to which the Law 
was a preparatory dispensation. We have now seen, 
that it would have been equally inconsistent with the 
immediate purpose of the Law itself. On the whole, 
we affirm, that it would in every respect have vio- 
lated that consistency which is now discernible in 
the plan of revelation, and have deranged those pro- 
portions in which the several parts of the Divine 
economy stand related to each other, and united 
into one body. 



SECTION III. 

TJie writings of Moses were specially adapted to coimtenance 
the belief in a future state, 

WE have now exhibited a view of those general 
sources, in which we conceive that the doctrine of a 



170 The Pentateuch specially adapted 

future state, considered as an universal principle of 
religion, must have originated. We have stated our 
reasons for maintaining, that no deviation from the 
general belief would have resulted, in the case of the 
Israelites, from the absence of any clear discoveries 
in the Pentateuch. Our present design is to shew, 
that the Pentateuch, though it conveys no explicit 
assurances respecting that doctrine, was nevertheless 
specially adapted to encourage the belief of it. 

Though we have endeavoured to account for its 
general reception on principles which apply equally 
to all mankind ; yet it will not suffice, if we would 
rightly estimate the case of the Israelites, to content 
ourselves with merely admitting, that they were, as 
to this particular, on a common footing with others. 
For it must appear, in fact, that they enjoyed a 
most distinguished advantage over the whole Gen- 
tile world. 

In the first place, to them were committed the 
oracles of God. Hence would they be enabled to 
form a juster notion of the hopes which God afforded 
for the comfort of mankind, than the heathen, whose 
accounts of the early world came to them mutilated 
and disfigured in their passage through a traditionary 
channel. 

If we suppose the belief of a future state to have 
originated in those transactions of the antediluvian 
world to which we have adverted, and to have been 
orally transmitted through the medium of Noah to 
his posterity ; it is plain, that the authentic records 
of sacred truth must have conferred a signal ad- 
vantage on those who possessed them. The primary 
grounds of that belief must, on this supposition, have 



to encour'age the belief of a future state. 171 

been as well known to the Israelites, as they were 
to those who lived in the very times to which those 
transactions belong. Whereas, in the Gentile world, 
this belief would rest on no other foundation than 
tradition ; and such tradition would probably be the 
more dubious, from want of knowledge respecting 
the source of its propagation, and the credit to which 
it was consequently entitled. 

But should we admit, that this belief did not take 
its rise from the transactions to which we refer ; it 
must still be maintained, that such transactions could 
never have been reasonably viewed by a mind which 
cherished the principles of true religion^ without that 
explanation, which the doctrine of a future state was 
alone competent to afford. The circumstances con- 
nected with the death of Abel, for instance, would, 
without this doctrine, have been sufficient to extin- 
guish every religious motive and feeling. 

Another favourable distinction would accrue to 
the Israelite from the same cause. As the deposi- 
tary of holy writ^ his mind would be enlightened 
by a correct knowledge of the Divine attributes, 
while the most erroneous conceptions prevailed re- 
specting them among the idolatrous nations. Hence 
would he be enabled to estimate, more justly than 
the other could, the character of those proceedings 
which the Deity might reasonably be expected to 
adopt. That nothing was contemplated in the Di- 
vine purpose, beyond that indiscriminate allotment 
of temporal good and evil which he witnessed in 
the present condition of the world, is an opinion, 
in which a mind thus instructed would not readily 
acquiesce. The force of such an argument could 



172 The Pentateuch specially adapted 

not have been so sensibly felt under the influence 
of Pagan superstition, which conveyed the most false 
and distorted representations of the moral attributes 
of the Deity. 

Proper sentiments respecting these attributes may, 
indeed, be sufficiently familiar, where the advantages 
of revealed religion have been habitually enjoyed. 
But would such sentiments have been at all compa- 
tible with those bad passions and malignant propen- 
sities, which paganism ascribed to its false deities ? 
Would they have derived any countenance from 
the perverse disputings and wild speculations of Gen- 
tile philosophy ? Whether we regard the theology or 
the philosophy of the heathen, we cannot but recog- 
nise a deplorable inferiority in the knowledge they 
possessed of the Divine perfections, when contrasted 
with the light which revelation imparted to the 
Israelites. A corresponding advantage must then 
have existed on the side of the latter, as ta their 
power of judging respecting the conduct, which an 
all-perfect Being might be expected to adopt towards 
his rational and accountable creatures. The Israelite, 
under such circumstances, would be the last to sup- 
pose, that, as no distinction was to be found in the 
present condition of men, so none would be made 
hereafter, between the obedient servant of God and 
the presumptuous transgressor of his law. 

But we have already maintained the incompe- 
tence of human reason to gather the doctrine of 
future reward, from a combined regard to the mo- 
ral attril)utes of God and the promiscuous allot- 
ments of our present state. What has been thus 
contended for as an universal position, may appear 



to encourage the belief of a future state. 173 

to be contradicted by our present remarks : since it 
is here asserted, that the Israelite would have de- 
rived this inference from the same considerations. 

But it is to be observed, that the reasoning in the 
former instance proceeded on a supposition, that the 
powers of reason were wholly unassisted ; a supposi- 
tion which is clearly inadmissible in the case of the 
Israelite. 

In the former instance, indeed^ we supposed the 
moral attributes of the Deity to be discoverable by 
reason, and that they were actually known from 
rational inquiry to the disciple of the religion of na- 
ture. (This assumption, however, is purely hypo- 
thetical : for we stop not here to inquire, whether 
a knowledge of the moral attributes of God really 
is, or is not, attainable by unassisted reason.) In 
the case of the Israelite, the same attributes are 
supposed to be known through the discovery of re- 
velation. 

Thus far, then, the Israelite and the disciple of 
natural religion are regarded as enjoying the same 
advantage ; though the advantage, in each case re- 
spectively, be derived from a very different source. 
But we must also attend to what the Israelite had 
peculiarly of his own : for it is on the ground of this 
distinction that the proof of a future state will ap- 
pear conclusive in his case, and inconclusive in the 
other. 

The light of nature and the exercise of reason 
could never convey to the disciple of natural religion 
an assurance, that God would pardon sin upon re- 
pentance. To be capable of pardon, is a benefit de- 



174 The Pentateuch specially adapted 

rived to man through the death of Christ. Now it 
will not be pretended that human reason could at- 
tain, by its own efforts, a foreknowledge of that 
meritorious sacrifice : it could therefore form no just 
expectation of the benefit which was to result from 
it, since that sacrifice is the appointed channel of 
conveying pardon to transgressors. But to the Is- 
raelite, the will of God in regard to this particu- 
lar had been revealed: for to him the Deity had 
expressly made himself known, as a God " forgiving 
" iniquity, and transgression, and sin^." 

From these general considerations, we will pass 
on to an examination of certain separate portions of 
the sacred text. We shall thus be enabled both to 
display the grounds, and to illustrate the character, 
of that belief in a future state, which the subjects of 
the Mosaic economy would deduce from the book of 
their law. The result, we trust, will make it ap- 
pear, that their hopes respecting that state were de- 
signed, according to the purpose of revelation, to 
centre in the same point with our own : our faith 
being established on a past event, theirs on a fu- 
ture prospect, but both of them meeting in the 
person of a Redeemer : the structure of the re- 
vealed word being so framed, that the promise of a 
Messiah should Tdc understood to comprise within it 
the promise of everlasting life ; and that the hope 
of everlasting life might be afforded, only in connex- 
ion with faith in him, who, in the fulness of time, 
was to purchase it for mankind. " Search the 

^ Exod. xxxiv. /. 



to encourage the belief of a Juture state. 175 

" Scriptures," says our Lord ; "• for in them ye think 
'' ye have ETERNAL LIFE : and they are they 
" which testify OF ME\" 

First, let us advert to those remarkable words in 
God's covenant with Abraham : " In thy seed shall 
" all the nations of the earth be blessed \" Here is 
the promise of a most important benefit to the whole 
race of mankind. We are to consider, in what sense 
this promise would be understood by the subject of 
the Mosaic law. For we can hardly imagine an 
apathy so great, as to be indifferent respecting the 
meaning of words which carry such an awakening 
interest : nor can we easily suppose, that the pro- 
mise itself was designed to convey no meaning be- 
yond a mere abstraction of the mind. Could he 
then construe it into a promise of temporal pros- 
perity ? That, indeed, was the blessing annexed to 
his own peculiar law. But he could not have the 
slightest reason to imagine, that it was the purpose 
of God to deal with all other nations after the same 
manner. He must indeed have had good foun- 
dation for believing the contrary : since he could 
not but know, that some of the greatest saints and 
most eminent favourites of God had been deeply 
afflicted. It is also plain, and it deserves parti- 
cular remark, that, with regard to even his own 
share and interest in the universal blessing, the 
Law of Moses would not permit him to view it in 
any forms of worldly prosperity. Of these he could 
justly hope for no augmentation : for these the Law 
itself conveyed to him, in the fullest manner of 
which the state of human life is capable, as the pre- 

*i John V. 39. ' Gen. xxii. 18. and xii.3. 



176 The Pentateuch specially adapted 

sent reward of fulfilling its injunctions : riches^ long 
life, and victory over his enemies, being the pro- 
mises annexed to his obedience. His anticipations 
of bliss in the advent of the Messiah must therefore, 
if they were reasonably framed, have been fixed 
upon something wholly distinct from the pleasures 
and possessions of this life. If, on the other hand, 
he viewed the promised blessing in relation to a fu- 
ture existence, then abundant reason must have oc- 
curred to countenance his interpretation. For, let 
it be observed, a blessing is here holden forth in 
distant prospect as the future portion of a race, on 
whom it had previously been denounced, " Dust 
" thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return." What 
else could be understood as the import of the bless- 
ing thus promised to all the posterity of Adam, than 
a mitigation of the curse which had passed upon 
them in the person of their progenitor and represen- 
tative? The same unchangeable Being who pro- 
nounces the decree of death, is he who foretells a 
blessing on that entire race who had been included 
in the previous malediction. The curse was known 
to the Israelite, and the blessing would naturally be 
construed with reference to it. He would not sup- 
pose them to be blessed, in a sense worthy of the Di- 
vine veracity, who were for ever subject to the 
effects of such a malediction. At the same time, 
his belief in the immutability of God would not al- 
low him to expect a total reversal of the sentence. 
What then would remain, but to ground on tlie be- 
nediction of Abraham a hope that the effects of that 
sentence would be iTHtigated ? that is, a hope of fu- 
ture existence. Such a hope would be consistent, 



to encourage the belief of a future state. 177 

on the one hand, with the mercy and promises of 
God, and on the other, with his veracity and de- 
nunciations ; and it would also be agreeable to those 
intimations respecting a future state, which were 
afforded by the previous transactions of the sacred 
history. 

This view of the subject will derive both strength 
and clearness from the following remarks of a highly 
distinguished prelate. " What distinct notion Abra- 
" ham had of the blessing promised to all nations 
" through him and his seed, what he thought of 
" the manner and method by which it should be 
" effected, we cannot pretend to say. But that he 
" understood it to be a promise of restoring man- 
" kind, and delivering them from the remaining 
" curse of the fall, there can be little doubt. He 
" knew that death had entered by sin ; he knew 
" that God had promised victory and redemption to 
" the seed of the woman : upon the hopes of this re- 
" storation the religion of his ancestors was founded; 
" and when God, from whom this blessing on all 
" men was expected, did expressly promise a blessing 
" on all men, and in this promise founded his ever- 
" lasting covenant, what could Abraham else ex- 
" pect but the completion in his seed of that ancient 
" promise and prophecy, concerning the victory to 
" be obtained by the woman's seed ? The curse of 
" the ground was expiated by the flood, and the 
" earth restored with a blessing, which was the foun- 
" dation of the temporal covenant with Noah ; a 
" large share of which God expressly grants to Abra- 
" ham and his posterity particularly, together with 
" a promise, by their means to bring a new and fur- 

N 



178 The Pentnfench specially adapted 

'* ther blessing upon the whole race of men. Lay 
" these things together, and say what less could be 
" expected from the new promise or prophecy given 
" to Abraham, than a deliverance from that part of 
'* the curse still remaining on man^ Dust thou art, 
" and to dust thoii shalt return f In virtue of this 
" covenant, Abraham and his posterity had reason 
** to expect, that the time would come, when man 
** should he called from his dust again : for this ex- 
*' pectation they had his assurance who gave the 
*' covenant, that he would be their God for ever ^." 

The blessing of Abraham must then have been 
understood, both by himself and his descendants, as 
having a regard to the same event with that prime- 
val declaration of mercy, by which a future triumph 
over the serpent was promised to the seed of the 
woman : and like that declaration itself, it would 
be interpreted to signify an ultimate recovery from 
the effect of that sentence, which had been pro- 
nounced on the occasion of man's first transgression. 

Subsequently to the date of this patriarchal be- 
nediction, we find in the sacred records a long and 
connected series of prophetic declarations relating to 
the xMessiah. These prophecies are marked in their 
progress by increasing degrees of clearness, by greatei* 
fulness of description, and by fresh limitations as to 
time, place, and other circumstances which may 
serve to fix and determine the person and event to 
which they refer : but an imiformity of character 
runs through them all, in their apparent reference 
to the same subject. These successive predictions 

^ Sherlock's Discourses on Prophecy. 



to en CO urage the belief of a future state. 179 

would be understood by the Israelite as having a re- 
gard to the earliest promise and to the blessing of 
Abraham ; and as being descriptive of a person in 
whom the benefit, of which a prospect had been 
afforded in those previous discoveries, was to be 
realized to mankind. Thus, the blessing of Abra- 
ham is transmitted to Isaac, and afterwards to Ja- 
cob ^ The subject of the three benedictions is ma- 
nifestly the same; but the successive anouncements 
of it are marked by a fresh limitation, relating to 
the family in which the blessing was to arise. The 
last mentioned patriarch repeats the promise in these 
remarkable words : " The sceptre shall not depart 
** from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, 
" until Shiloh come "\" Here again the subject of 
the prophecy is the same ; but a new limitation is 
introduced with regard to time. Thus also, in the 
later ages of the Israelitish church, all those sublime 
anticipations of Christ's evangelical kingdom, which 
are contained in the writings of David, of Isaiah, of 
Daniel, of Micah, of Haggai, and of other prophets, 
could be justly regarded, in their general tenor and 
design, as repetitions only of the promise which had 
been indirectly conveyed in the malediction of the 
serpent, and afterwards more expressly declared to 
Abraham. These repetitions may have derived their 
propriety from any occasions of deep distress and 
despondency, the effects of which they may have 
been designed to counteract by the revival of a 
faint and languishing hope : or they may have been 
afforded with a regard to those times and seasons, 

' Gen. xxvi,4. xxviii. 14. '" Gen. xlix. 10. 

N 2 



180 The Pentateuch specially adapted 

which by the Divine wisdom were judged suitable 
to the disclosure of particular circumstances and 
characters belonging to the person and office of the 
Redeemer, of which an earlier discovery would have 
been unseasonable and premature. But still, with 
whatever enlargements, modifications, or restrictions, 
they were expressed, they must, with regard to their 
leading subject, have been in the strictest sense of 
the word considered as repetitions. A number of 
successive prophecies^ each of them relating to one 
future event of supreme and paramount importance 
to all mankind, would naturally be interpreted as 
having a relation to the same event. This conclu- 
sion will appear irresistible, when it is considered, 
that nothing is any where suggested by which the 
mind would be led to distinguish the subject of one 
of these evangelical predictions from that of another. 
Several of these predictions are contained in the 
writings of Isaiah ; but in no one of them is it 
hinted, that the blessing which forms the subject of 
that, is different from the blessing which forms the 
subject of the others. Daniel foretells the same bliss- 
ful event : but his prophecy contains not the slight- 
est intimation, that the blessing, of which he an- 
nounces the prospect, was any other than that, which 
had been already spoken of by Isaiah. The same 
general principle might, if it were necessary, be 
further illustrated, by references to other passages 
in the prophetic writings. 

Nor, indeed, if we duly estimate the plans of Di- 
vine wisdom, can it be thought agreeable to the pur- 
pose of Scripture prophecy, that any uncertainty 
should have been intended to exist, with regard to 



to encourage the belief of a future state. 181 

the various predictions of the Messiah which were 
afforded in successive ages to the Jewish church, 
whether the same or different events were denoted 
by them : concurring, as those representations do, in 
representing the incomparably momentous import- 
ance of the subject to which they severally relate. 

There are two peculiarities observable in the pre- 
dictions of the Messiah contained in the Old Testa- 
ment, of which an attentive consideration will con- 
tribute to strengthen the position we wish to esta- 
bUsh. 

The later prophecies of this class are so constructed, 
that the Messiah, to whom they relate, appears to 
be spoken of as a subject previously familiar to the 
mind. They seem designed, not to introduce the 
mention of his character to such as were strangers to 
the prospect of his advent, so much as to disclose 
some fresh particular among the important circum- 
stances connected with it. Take for example the 
benediction of Judah, which we have already cited. 
** The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a 
" lawgiverfrom between his feet, until Shiloh come™." 
The Messiah is here designated by the term " Shi- 
" loh," or " he that is sent." We are not told, as if 
in a first information, that a Messiah shall he 
sent. That is assumed as a matter already known 
and understood. And the prophecy appears de- 
signed, as much to fix a time for the accomplishment 
of the promise which it announces, as to confirm and 
establish the validity of the promise itself. It is added, 
" And unto him shall the gathering of the people 

"1 Gen. xlix. 10. 

n3 



182 The Pentateuch specially adapted 

" be." Here also the same observation applies. This 
latter clause, like the former, is a repetition. It re- 
fers to the prophetic benediction of Jacob himself 
by his father : " Let people serve thee, and nations 
" bow down to thee"." But in this latter instance, 
an additional and very important circumstance is 
connected with the matter of the earlier prediction ; 
which is, that the benediction contained in the last 
cited words, and which was to take effect among 
the descendants of Jacob, should be realized, either 
in Shiloh, or in Judah, from whom the Messiah, or- 
dained to have dominion over all nations, was to go 
forth. This application of the two prophecies to 
the same subject will derive confirmation from the 
sublime strains of the evangelical prophet, who de- 
scribes the reign of the Messiah agreeably to the 
tenor of them both : " It shall come to pass in the 
" last days, that the mountain of the Lord's house 
" shall be established in the top of the mountains, 
*' and shall be exalted above the hills ; and all na- 
'' tions shall flow unto it. And many people shall 
" go and say, Come ye and let us go up to the 
*' mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of 
" Jacob ; and he will teach us of his ways, and we 
" will walk in his paths : fo?^ out of Zion shall go 
''forth the laiv, and the word of the Lord from Je- 
" rusalem. And he shall judge among the na- 
" tions, and shall rehuhe many people^T The 
blessing which Jacob pronounces on his son Judah 
may therefore be paraphrased thus. He may be un- 

" Gen. xxvii. 2y. 

" Isaiah ii. 2, 3, 4, See also Micah iv. 1, 2. 



to encourage the belief of a future state. 183 

derstood to say : God has promised, that in my seed 
all mankind shall be blessed : this shall be realized 
before Judah as a nation shall have ceased to rule 
over his sons : before that time, he who is sent as 
the promised blessing shall appear. And whereas it 
has also been promised, that people and nations shall 
serve and obey me ; this also shall be verified in 
Shiloh ; the gathering and obedience of the nations 
shall be to him my descendant?. 

We will adduce one more example for the illus- 
tration of our subject. By the prophet Haggai the 
approaching season of man's redemption is thus an- 
nounced. " Yet once, it is a little while, and I will 
" shake the heavens, and the earth, and the sea, and 
" the dry land ; and I will shake all nations, and 
" the desire of all nations shall come." Here again 
the expression is different from that which we should 
expect, in relation to a subject newly introduced. 
The Messiah is spoken of as " the desire of all na- 
" tions," in a character, which, from the turn of the 
language, seems to have been previously and gene- 
rally understood : and an allusion seems to be made 
to that earlier prediction of the promised seed, in 
whom all the families of the earth were to be blessed. 
Thus would the subject of the two prophecies be 
identified in the contemplation of those by whom 
they were known and duly considered : and the lat- 
ter of them would be understood to point the expec- 
tation of the Jews, not solely to the Messiah him- 
self, (for he was expected before,) but chiefly to the 

P See Bishop Newton's Dissertations on Prophecy, Diss. Ill, 
and IV. pp. 49, and ^^. ed. 1811. 

N 4 



184 The Pentateuch specially adapted 

time when he was to appear, and the place which 
was to be glorified by his presence. So the prophet 
continues his strain : " And I will fill this house 
" with glory, saith the Lord of hosts. The silver is 
" mine, and the gold is mine, saith the Lord of 
" hosts. The glory of this latter house shall be 
" greater than of the former, saith the Lord of hosts : 
" and in this place will I give peace, saith the Lord 
" of hosts^" 

Secondly, the similarity of description which is 
observable in many of these predictions would serve 
as a guide to the identity of their subject. Take 
for example the celebrated prophecy of Isaiah, in 
which, among other expressions of similar import, 
it is declared, respecting the Redeemer of men, " that 
" his soul should be made an offering for sin^." 
In agreement with this earlier prophecy, it is de- 
clared by Daniel, that after a certain period " Mes- 
" siah shall be cut off, but not for himself^." The 
later prophecy determines the period which was 
fixed for the accomplishment of the earlier : but the 
description of the event foretold discovers a corre- 
spondence with the previous description which had 
been given by Isaiah, and would therefore have been 
regarded an an evidence, that the event severally 
predicted by the two prophets was the same. 

It remains for us to apply the foregoing remarks 
to the subject of this inquiry. 

It has been our design to elucidate, in the later 
prophecies of the Messiah, their connection with, 
and dependence on, the earlier : our purpose being, 

T Haggai ii. 6, 7, 8, 9. ' Isaiah liii. 10. " Dan. ix. 26. 



to encourage the belief of a future state, 1 85 

to illustrate the identity of the subject to which they 
would all be understood to relate. We have en- 
deavoured to maintain, that this connection and de- 
pendence would, by every reasonable mind, be had 
in view in the interpretation of their design. The 
field of illustration has indeed been extended beyond 
the limits of the Mosaic writings. But if the prin- 
ciple contended for shall appear applicable to the 
whole chain of evangelical prophecy which reaches 
from the beginning to the end of the Old Testa- 
ment^ certainly the validity of its application cannot 
be questioned with respect to those links of the 
chain which are to be found in the Pentateuch 
alone. 

On the ground of this principle then we contend^ 
that every successive prediction of the Messiah would 
justly be viewed as containing the promise of a fu- 
ture life. We have shewn, that the victory which 
was promised to the seed of the woman could in no 
other way have been reasonably understood, than as 
intended to denote a triumph over death, and a re- 
sumption of immortality We have also shewn, that 
the blessing of Abraham could be justly viewed only 
as having regard to the felicity of a future life. The 
consequence is manifest. If every succeeding pro- 
phecy of the Messiah would be understood with re- 
ference to these two earliest prophecies, and con- 
strued as a republication of them, then every such 
prophecy must have been regarded, as tacitly com- 
prising in it the doctrine of a future state. 

I will only observe in conclusion, that the evi- 
dence of a future state afforded to the Israelites, 
being such as we have now described, was so framed 



186 The Pentateuch specially adapted, ^c, 

as to obviate a gross and dangerous misconception, 
which would naturally have arisen from making it 
the appropriate sanction of the Levitical law. In 
the latter case, the subjects of that law could hardly 
fail to regard the promise of eternal life, as a bene- 
fit restricted to themselves and denied to the rest of 
mankind. But this error would derive no counte- 
nance from the views which the writings of Moses 
actually discover. The first promise of a triumph 
over the serpent, could have been reasonably con- 
strued only in vmison with that declaration of the 
Apostle, "As in Adam all die, even so in Christ 
" shall all be made alive^." The blessings of Abra- 
ham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, embraced all the fami- 
lies of the earth, and that of Judah was equally 
comprehensive. In these blessings the promise of 
eternal life is virtually and intelligibly conveyed. 
The later declarations of Scripture were of an uni- 
form character, and the general tenor of it was cal- 
culated to regulate the expectation of a future state 
agreeably to the truest conceptions of God's holy and 
merciful attributes : " God is no respecter of per- 
" sons : but in every nation he that feareth him, 
" and worketh righteousness, is accepted with him"." 

t 1 Cor. XV. 22. « Acts X. 34,35. 



The belief of a future state guarded, 8^c, 187 



CHAPTER V. 

VIEW OF A PARTICULAR PROVISION BY WHICH THE BELIEF 
IN A FUTURE STATE WAS GUARDED FROM AFFORDING 
COUNTENANCE TO OPINIONS INCONSISTENT WITH TRUE 
RELIGION. 

X HAT the promise of eternal life formed no part 
of the Mosaical covenant ; and that the writings of 
the Israelitish lawgiver contain no explicit declara- 
tions relating to that subject : are principles, on a 
recognition of which the present inquiry hath all 
along proceeded. It has however been contended, 
that the subjects of that covenant were not, as to this 
essential point of religious doctrine, excluded from 
participating in the general hopes of mankind. With 
a view to substantiate this latter position, we have, 
first, taken a view of the sources from which the 
Israelites, in common with other nations, must have 
derived their knowledge of a future state ; and se- 
condly, we have exhibited a distinct foundation, on 
which the hopes of the former were peculiarly esta- 
blished. 

As a measure auxiliary to the general design of 
this treatise^ it will be proper, in the next place, to 
notice a provision, which was calculated at once to 
confirm the hope of a future life, and to obviate the 
perversion of that hope : so that the prospect of im- 
mortal happiness as the reward of well doing, might 
be guarded from all association with opinions, which 
derogate from the freedom of Divine grace and 
contradict the scheme of redemption. That the lan- 
guage of explicit promise and direct assertion would 



188 Origin of Sacrifice, 

naturally have been wrested to the support of these 
erroneous sentiments, we have endeavoured to evince. 
And it will not be unreasonable to suppose, that 
these same sentiments may have derived some de- 
gree of countenance from the bare existence and 
prevalence of the doctrine of a future state, even 
though that doctrine could not have alleged the 
sanction of a Divine promise. If therefore any pro- 
vision shall appear to have been made, which has a 
manifest tendency to counteract these mistaken and 
dangerous views, it must necessarily be considered as 
having a strong claim to our attention in the consi- 
deration of this subject. 



SECTION I. 

Origin qf Sacrifice. 

IF we direct our attention to the prominent fea- 
tures in the religious character of the world, as they 
discover themselves in that long succession of ages 
which intervened between the fall of man and the 
death of Christ ; we cannot fail of being struck with 
an endless variety in the prevailing forms of wor- 
ship and systems of belief. In the patriarchal ages 
and under the Law, we find both the creed and the 
practice of mankind diversified in the process of 
time by fresh communications of Divine truth, dis- 
tinguished at later periods by a greater fulness than 
those which had been granted to foregoing genera- 
tions. In the tenets and observances of the heathen^ 
we meet with a still greater diversity, characterized 
throughout by the wild and fantastic workings of 
human folly, superstition, and wickedness. But, 



Origin of Sacrifice. 189 

however glaring the general disagreement, still the 
eye, while surveying the multitude of dissimilar 
forms which are crowded in the wide expanse, re- 
cognises a few circumstances of striking uniformity. 
Some particulars of agreement may be discerned in 
the records of every age comprehended within the 
specified period, and, with very rare and question- 
able exceptions, in those of every nation under hea- 
ven. Such are the belief of a God, and the doctrine 
of a future state : to which also we may add, the ob- 
servance of sacrifice. This observance rises in point 
of time to the very highest antiquity, and reaches in 
extent throughout the whole inhabited world, wher- 
ever any vestiges of religion have been discovered. 

The prevalence of this rite having been commen- 
surate with the belief in a future retribution, afforded 
therefore a suitable corrective to any errors which 
might have been grafted upon it. It was adapted 
to silence the plea of human merit, and to bring out 
to view (as far as man, in the early and imperfect 
stages of a progressive scheme, was capable of view- 
ing it) the only real ground of justification and ac- 
ceptance before God. Hence do we obtain a cor- 
roborative testimony to the validity of the reasoning 
we have pursued, respecting the omission of a fu- 
ture state as a sanction to the Mosaic law. And we 
discover, at the same time, a remarkable instance of 
the harmony which pervades the Divine dispensa- 
tions in the economy of the old and new covenants. 

The truth of these observations will appear, we 
trust, from a candid examination of this interesting 
subject in regard to the three following points : First, 
the origin of sacrifice: Secondly, its meaning: Third- 



190 Origin of Sacrifice. 

ly, its use and importance, considered as a subordi- 
nate and temporary provision belonging to the ge- 
neral plan of revealed religion. 

The nature of this examination renders it ne- 
cessary to offer in this place a few introductory re- 
marks, for the purpose of explaining its object and 
defining its extent. 

To pursue the doctrine of sacrifice through its 
many and extensive ramifications would greatly ex- 
ceed the limits of our design : that design embracing 
only so much of the subject as, being closely inter- 
woven with the plan of our redemption, is therefore 
essentially connected with the general purpose of 
this treatise. 

As the subject of our immediate attention is de- 
noted by a word of loose and various acceptation, it 
will be proper that we should, in the first place, de- 
termine the sense in which we intend to employ it. 
The following limitation must therefore be attended 
to. 

Though the term sacrifice^ according to various 
received definitions, has a more extended applica- 
tion, it will in the sequel be restricted to that spe- 
cies of offering, which is distinguished by the inflic- 
tion of death on a living victim, and which is more 
specifically denoted by the term mactation. It must 
not, however, be so understood, as necessarily to ex- 
clude, on the other hand, all those additional cases, 
wherein, according to the Levitical ritual, the inflic- 
tion of death is prescribed as the part of a religious 
service, though such cases may lie beyond the boun- 
daries of the received definitions. We find it ne- 



Origm of Sacrifice. 191 

cessary thus to narrow the compass of its significa- 
tion in one way, because, according to some defini- 
tions, it comprises inanimate in common with ani- 
mal offerings ^: and to enlarge it in another, because 
it is at one time so defined, as to exclude whatever 
offerings, though of the animal class, were not ei- 
ther wholly or in part consumed upon the altar ; 
and at another, with more particular reference to 
the ritual of Moses, the definition separates from 
the sacrificial character whatever victims were not 
presented in the tabernacle or temple, according to 
the mode which that ritual prescribes^. 

With regard to sacrifice thus defined, a further 
limitation is requisite. Our attention in treating 

^ Of these definitions the following may serve for examples. 
" Sacrificium est victima, et qucecunque cremantur in ara^ Lact. 
Div. Inst. vi. 25. "Quae Deo ante aram, vel in mensa sacra in 
** adyto exteriori posita, ita quidem offerebantur, ut rite eonsu- 
" menda essent, ea Judaei in sacrificiorum censum referunt. Quae 
** cum ita sint, sacrificium, ad eorum sententiam, ita definiri po- 

*' test, ut sit nP02*0PA RITE CONSUMPTA.^ -Sacra au- 

*• tem rite consumpta erant, quae ritu divinitus institute inte- 
'^ rempta, cremata, aut eifusa, aut ad epulas sacras adhibita erant. 

'< Eorum autem, qu2e et oblata, et ritu sacro consumpta 

** erant, alia erant ex inanimis, alia autem ex animantibus." 

Outram de Sacrificiis, lib. i. c. viii. §. 2, 3. 

'^ According to these definitions, the first observance of the 
Passover would be excluded from the sacrificial character : which 
however, we contend, most strictly belonged to it. See Lev. xiv. 5. 
Numb. xix. 1 — 10, Deut. xxi. 1 — 9. In regard to the ceremonies 
described in the passages here referred to, we feel it unnecessary 
to decide, whether the precise notion of sacrifice for which we 
shall in the sequel contend does, or does not, attach to them : it 
is sufficient that they are not, by any terms we have employed, 
excluded from that designation. Our motive in saying this, is to 
wave a discussion which is not necessary to our purpose. 



192 Origin of Sacrifice. 

this subject will be confined to those essential quali- 
ties which belong to it in its strict character of an 
oblation : for this is all that we are at present con- 
cerned with. Whatever concomitant and circum- 
stantial particulars may be found subsisting in con- 
nexion with these qualities, will therefore be passed 
over : though such particulars may be found to rest 
upon the authority of a Divine injunction. 

In order to clear the subject, and to explain the 
principles of our proceeding, we are to observe, that 
the general system of religious oblations in the Old 
Testament cannot otherwise be justly regarded, 
than as having been framed with a view to more than 
one object. Many purposes, additional and subordi- 
nate to those for which we shall more especially con- 
tend, were contemplated in it. That they were, may 
reasonably be explained by regarding the state of 
the world to which that system was accommodated. 
The mode of instruction by symbolical rites is at all 
times useful ; but it was more particularly suitable 
to the cuxumstances of those times, which we find 
distinguished by the more abundant employment of 
it. We say that this mode of instruction is at all 
times useful : because those instituted ordinances 
which instruct by actions instead of words, are cal- 
culated to guard both the permanence and the purity 
of important truths from the uncertainties of tradi- 
tion, the fluctuations and ambiguities of language. 
Their utility is further discovered in the superior 
strength of those vivid impressions which are thus 
attached to the lessons they inculcate : 

" Segnius irritant animos demissa per aures 
" Quam qua? sunt oculis subjecta fidelibns. 



Origin of Sacrifice. 193 

We need not therefore wonder, if it shall appear, 
that the Divine wisdom has partly employed this 
mode of instruction for the edification of mankind in 
aU ages. We find it even now continued in the 
two sacraments of the Christian church. But it 
was more particularly called for in the early stages 
of revelation. The wisdom of the Divine economy 
in adapting its provisions to the wants and circum- 
stances of the human race, permitted in these pe- 
riods only a scanty and sparing disclosure of evan- 
gelical truth : and the veil of emblem and similitude 
was therefore well adapted to a state of things, in 
which a limited information was necessary and pro- 
per, but a full disclosure would have been unseason- 
able. Agreeably to this view, we find that the me- 
thod of instruction by parable and similitude (it 
differs not, as to this point, whether by word or ac- 
tion) was largely employed, even after the light of 
the Gospel had begun to dawn upon the world in 
the preaching of our Lord : we find a reason assigned 
for it which is strictly in unison with the tenor of 
these remarks : and we also find an announcement 
of the near approach of that time, when, under the 
fuller dispensation of religious knowledge, it would 
be less employed. " I have yet many things to 
" say unto you, hut ye cannot hear them now^.'' 
" These things have I spoken unto you in pro- 
" verbs : but the time cometh when I shall no more 
" speah unto you in proverhs, hut I shall shew 
" you plainly of the Father^'' 

It appears then, that figurative instruction, con- 

^ John xvi. 12. '^ Ibid, verse 25. 



194 Origin of Sacrifice. 

veyed through the medium of ceremonial ordinances, 
was proper, partly for a reason arising fi^om the ge- 
neral constitution of man ; and partly for reasons 
which more especially attach to an imperfect com- 
munication of religious truth. In congruity with 
the principles thus laid down, we may reasonably 
suppose, that a variety of uses and instructions were 
contemplated in the numerous oblations required by 
the Law, and that every particularity of detail be- 
longing to them had a distinct and beneficial pur- 
pose. We may discover, in one part of the scheme, 
an instituted act of homage, together with an ex- 
pressive declaration of gratitude and dependence ; 
in another, we may properly acknowledge the solem- 
nities of a covenant ; in a third, we may recognise 
the appointed tokens of friendship and peace be- 
tween God and his worshippers : these things, I say, 
may be acknowledged as the separate designs of dis- 
tinct ordinances, or of subordinate regulations be- 
longing to the same ordinances. But this will in 
no degree militate against the construction we at- 
tach to that part of the system, in which man is set 
forth to us as a sinner and a penitent, and his Maker 
as a God forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin. 
This part, which will be the exclusive subject of our 
present consideration, is limited to the simple act of 
worshipping the Deity by the immolation of a vic- 
tim. 

We have been led into our present remarks, chiefly 
by a desire of obviating those objections against the 
construction of one part of the oblational system, 
which are made by alleging the interpretation of 
a different part. And this we esteem the more ne- 



Origin of Sacrifice. 195 

cessary, by reason of the mistakes and misrepresenta- 
tions which present themselves to our notice in the 
writings of various theologians who have treated this 
subject before us ; and of whom, though we question 
not their learning and ability, we cannot hesitate to 
declare our opinion, that they have widely deviated 
from the truth, under the influence of contracted 
views and systematic prejudice. Thus, one divine ^ 
can discover in the sacrificial ordinance, at least 
during a long period of its prevalence, nothing more 
than the notion of a gift, or voluntary offering ; and 
another ^ maintains, that it has no other import than 
that of a federal rite. With some restriction as to 
the latitude of the former of these interpretations^, 
we may admit the correctness of both ^ in their ap- 
plication to distinct parts and purposes of the obla- 
tional ritual : while the contemplation of either of 
them, as the proper interpretation of the whole of 
that ritual, involves, as we conceive, the -same ab- 

^ Spencer. " Monendum est itaque, sacrificia munera tantum 
" fuisse, quae prisca simplicitas in Deum contulit, et ad fines eos- 
" dem apud Deum, qiios munera apud homines, valere credidit." 
DeLegg. p. 762. 

^ Sykes. *' Sacrifices were federal rites, and implied men's en- 
" tering into friendship with God ; or if they had violated friend- 
*' ship with God by violating the stipulation entered into, then 
" sacrifice implied a renewal of friendship, or a reconciliation 
** with him, or a return to that state from which the offender had 
** departed." Essay on Sacrifices, p. 59. 

s That is to say, the free-will offering is to be regarded as 
voluntary, inasmuch as each distinct observance of it was so : but 
this does not imply, that either its^r^^ institution, or the mode of 
its observance, was voluntary on the part of man. 

^ With regard to the former, see Levit. xxii. 18.; the latter 
applies, Exod. xxiv. 8. and Psalm 1.5. 

O 2 



196 Origin of Sacrifice. 

surdity, as that of giving the delineation of a single 
feature for the poi:trait of a countenance. 

In tracing the origin of sacrifice, the chief stress 
of argument ought doubtless to be laid on the testi- 
mony of scripture. On this therefore we shall prin- 
cipally rely, as the most decisive, if not the only 
competent, authority. In addition however to the 
light we thus obtain, there are other considerations 
to which a minor importance may properly be at- 
tached : because, though they were deemed incon- 
clusive of themselves, and though we put them not 
in competition with the guidance of sacred truth, 
they are adapted to display, in strong colours of 
general probability and reason, the doctrine, which 
we would chiefly insist on as the result of more au- 
thoritative evidence. 

One of these considerations, derived from a clear 
and forcible writer, may here be offered, as a suit- 
able preliminary to a scriptural investigation . " What- 
" ever practice," observes Delany, ^' has obtained 
" universally in the world, must have obtained from 
** some dictate of reason, or some demand of na- 
" ture, or some principle of interest ; or else from 
" some powerful influence or injunction of some 
" being of universal authority. Now the practice of 
" animal sacrifice did not obtain from reason ; for 
" no reasonable notions of God could teach men, that 
" he could take delight in blood, or in the fat of 
" slain beasts ; nor will any man say, that we have 
" any natural instinct to gratify, in spilling the blood 
" of an innocent creature ; nor could there be any 
" temptation from appetite to do this in those ages. 



Origin of Sacrifice. 197 

" when the whole sacrifice was consumed by fire ; 
" or when, if it was not, yet men wholly abstained 
^* from flesh ; and consequently this practice did not 
" owe its origin to any principle of interest. Nay, 
^' so far from any thing of this, that the destruction 
" of innocent and useful creatures is evidently against 
'^ nature, against reason, and against interest ; and 
" therefore must be founded in an authority, whose 
^' influence was as powerful as the practice was uni- 
" versal; and that could be none but the autho- 
*' rity of God the sovereign of the world, or of Adam 
^* the founder of the human race. If it be said, of 
" Adam ; the question still returns — What motive 
*' determined him to the practice ? It could not be 
" nature, reason, or interest, as has been shewn ; 
" and therefore it must have been the authority of 
" his Sovereign. And had Adam enjoined it to his 
" posterity, it is not to be imagined that they would 
" have obeyed him, in so extraordinary and expen- 
" sive a rite, from any other motive than the com- 
« mand of God^" 

The argument thus stated yields a strong pre- 
sumption in favour of the position we desire to main- 
tain. This position we shall now endeavour to 
establish on the certain basis of scriptural evidence. 

The knowledge we possess relating to the first 
observance of sacrifice, is principally derived from 
the two following passages of the sacred volume. 
The first is from the Book of Genesis. " And in 

> Revelation examined with Candour ; vol. i. Diss. viii. The 
passage referred to being too long for citation, I have given the 
substance of it in a compressed form from Kennicott's Two Dis- 
sertations. 

o 3 



198 Origin of Sacrifice, 

" process of time it came to pass, that Cain brought 
" of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the 
" Lord. And Abel, he also brought of the firstlings 
'* of his flock and of the fat thereof. And the Lord 
*' had respect unto Abel and to his offering : but 
" unto Cain and to his offering he had not respect ^." 
The second is from the Epistle to the Hebrews. 
'* By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent 
^' sacrifice than Cain, by which he obtained witness 
" that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts ^." 
In the foregoing texts, there are two points which 
chiefly claim our regard : the act of Abel, and the 
principle from which it sprung. The act is, that he 
brought of the firstlings of his flock an offering 
unto the Lord, and that he offered unto God a 
more excellent sacrifice than Cain, The principle 
which led to that act is faith, ^ow faith, when 
spoken of as a religious principle, must have a ne- 
cessary reference to a Divine command. Hence we 
would infer, that there existed a connexion between 
the sacrifice of Abel and the command of God. " If 
" faith," says Dr. Kennicott, " was the principle, that 
" influenced Abel to bring the animal sacrifice, he 
** certainly did not bring it from the dictates of rea- 
*' son only. For we have the express testimony of 
" the apostle, that ' faith cometh by hearing, and 
*' hearing by the word of God"^;' the consequence 
" of which is, that Abel offered this sacrifice in obe- 
" dience to the word of God, which evidently means 
" the word of God revealed"." 

'^ Gen. iv. 3, 4, 5. ' Hebrews xi. 4. 

"^ '* Rom. X. 17." 

" Two Dissertations, p. 212. ed. 1747. 



Origirt of Sacrifice. 199 

But this conclusion is resisted. It is alleged, that 
the reason why one offering was accepted and the 
other rejected, is to be found, not in the outward act 
and mode of worship, but in the dispositions of the 
worshippers ; that the faith and piety of the one, 
and the absence of these qualities in the other, were 
the causes of the different receptions which their 
oblations experienced ; and that the faith of Abel 
had regard only to the general promises of God. 
This supposition being admitted, it is further con- 
tended, that there is no more necessity for referring 
to a Divine command the sacrifice of Abel than that 
of Cain «. 

But if no importance be allowed to attach to the 
difference of the two offerings, it is surely unac- 
countable that this difference should be so distinctly 
noticed by the sacred historian. Consider the very 
concise brevity with which Moses hath compressed 
within the space of six chapters, whatever was im- 
portant to be known by after-ages respecting the 
transactions of the antediluvian world, extending 
through a period of sixteen hundred years. Are 
we, in a narrative thus framed, to look for a dis- 
tinct specification of unimportant circumstances ? 
Would it not be more reasonable to expect, in a re- 
cord of such comprehensive brevity, the insertion of 

° *' Fides ilia quae Abelis donum TiKeiovoq Ova-iat; titulo dignum 
" fecit, persuasio fuit tarn firma et alte fixa de propenso Dei in 
*' pios omnes affectu, et praemiis amplissimis in pie viventes 
*' conferendis, quod vitam ejus ad pietatis regulas instituerit, et 
*' non tantum bona sua sed et seipsum Deo dederit." Spencer 
de Legg. p. 768. 

o 4 



200 Origin of Sacrifice, 

no particulars, but such as are designed to be the 
subject of marked attention and the vehicle of im- 
portant instruction ? 

Let us again advert to the view of this transac- 
tion which is afforded by the apostle to the Hebrews. 
By this writer, the outward act and the inward 
disposition are plainly distinguished. The former 
is designated hy faith ; the latter by a more excels 
lent sacrifice ; Tr^eiova Ovaiav, a more abundant sacri- 
fice, or that which has more of the real nature of 
sacrifice. The matter itself of the sacrifice is also 
stated explicitly, as partly constituting the ground 
of its acceptance : for it is said, that God testified of 
his gifts. If we thus combine together the views 
afforded by Moses and St. Paul, it will not be easy 
to evade the following conclusion : namely, that 
faith and obedience were both exercised in the specific 
act and mode of worship performed by Abel, and 
that both were wanting in the performance of Cain. 

Those however who maintain the human institu- 
tion of sacrifice, will argue thus : " It is certain that 
" Cain and Abel presented such offerings as were 
" respectively most suitable to their several means 
" and occupations. Cain, being an husbandman, is 
" said to have offered from the fruits of the ground, 
" and Abel, being a shepherd, to have offered from 
" the firstlings of his flock, an offering to the Lord. 
" Here we have a probable ground of conjecture, 
'' that they offered their sacrifices^ only as the vo- 
" luntary expressions of gratitude to God, for the 
'' blessings with which he had prospered their se- 
'* veral labours; and that reason dictated no less 



Origin of Sacrifice, 201 

" the act of sacrifice, than the matter of the sacri- 
" fice. For Cain and Abel appear, from the instruc- 
" tion of their natural reason, to have judged, that 
" in making a sacred offering of gratitude to God, 
'' that which they had first received from him should 
" be preferred as the matter of the oblation : in or- 
" der that their sacrifice might thus become a more 
" expressive declaration of the Divine goodness and 
" of their own thankfulness p." 

Such is the reasoning of Spencer, one of the most 
learned and strenuous maintainers of the human 
original of sacrifice. But if I am capable of rightly 
estimating the value of his argument, the facts on 
which it professes to be grounded are such as dic- 
tate an inference, precisely the contrary to that 
which he has deduced from them. 

That Cain, filled as he was with pride and wicked- 
ness, and destitute of faith, humility, and holiness, 
should have been actuated by the principle thus 
ascribed to him, is a probable supposition. It may 
be allowed, that he contemplated his own proceed- 
ing as perfectly agreeable to reason, and indeed far 
more so than that of his brother. For uninstructed 
reason could never discover, in the slaughter of a 
victim, a fit mode of worshipping God, or of obtain- 
ing the great ends of a religious service : and as to 
revelation, the want of faith which is imputed to 
him would naturally induce a resistance of that au- 
thority. Pride may have felt a degradation in the 
selection, as an offering to the Majesty of heaven, of 
that which had more affinity to his brother's habits 

P Spencer de Legg.p. 7^7. The foregoing citation is trans- 
lated from that work. 



202 Origin of Sacrifice. 

of life than his own : and the selection, thus made 
by the supreme authority of God, may have induced, 
in a mind festering with vanity, a stinging, though 
groundless, sense of personal inferiority. 

But if we look to the final issue of this transac- 
tion, we surely cannot discover the slightest ground 
for supposing, that the principle thus described was 
agreeable to the Divine will : nor the slightest coun- 
tenance of that opinion, which refers the introduc- 
tion of sacrifice to the dictates of reason, the senti- 
ments of nature, and the suggestion of circum- 
stance. 

Indeed, I cannot but think, that the sacred re- 
cord was designedly framed, in regard to those few 
particulars which are here presented to our notice, 
with a view to cut off all pretence for the inference 
which has been drawn from it by this writer, and by 
others who have followed him in the same line of 
argument. Had Moses simply recorded the different 
acts of worship performed by Cain and Abel ; had 
he omitted the mention of any following events sub- 
sisting in connexion with those acts : here would 
have been a fair show of probable evidence in sup- 
port of their reasoning, who maintain the human in- 
stitution of sacrifice. But this is not the character 
of the statement before us. From this statement it 
appears, indeed, that both Cain and Abel presented 
an oblation to God ; and that these oblations had 
respectively an equal aflfinity to their several occu- 
pations in life. Thus far then, we admit, a case is 
l)efore us, which may countenance, though faintly, 
an opinion, that sacrifice was the progeny of human 
reason, and that the earliest oblations were suggested 



Origin of Sacrifice, WS 

by the employments and situations of the worship- 
pers. Faintly, I say, by reason of the preponde- 
rating weight of scriptural evidence which militates 
against it. This however, to make the most of it, 
is reasoning upon a half of our subject, while we 
profess to reason upon the whole. If we will only 
view the entire transaction, we shall quickly see 
it in a different shape and complexion. For when 
we find that, in the event, one of these offerings 
was accepted, and the other rejected ; does not this 
imply a declaration, that those rational consider- 
ations, which are supposed to have dictated the first 
sacrificial observance, were contrary to the will and 
approbation of God ? As to the natural fitness of 
the acts with relation to the circumstances of the 
agents, both offerings stand on the same footing of 
propriety : Abel's offering was an act of devotion 
suitable to the character of a shepherd, and that of 
Cain was equally so to the character of an husband- 
man. So far, both had an equally fair prospect of 
acceptance and favour ; and yet the result was far 
different from any expectation which might thus 
have been framed. 

On the whole, then, if we would frame a just 
conclusion with regard to this transaction, we must 
take a full and impartial view of it : we must have 
a regard to the different result of the two offerings : 
we must attentively remark those additional parti- 
culars which have been communicated to us, and 
which may afford a clue to the explanation of that 
difference : and most especially, we must not, after 
the example of this learned writer, confine our at- 
tention to those circumstances in the two cases 



204 Origin of Sacrifice, 

which are apparently similar or analogous, while 
we exclude others which are marked by the most 
striking disagreement. These additional particu- 
lars are as follows. First, the accepted offering con- 
sisted in the shedding of blood, without which we 
are instructed, that there " is no remission^;" whereas 
that which was rejected was an offering of inani- 
mate things. Secondly, the accepted offering was 
offered by faith : the rejected offering, without faith. 
Thirdly, it is said that God testified of Abel's gifts : 
the gifts being a subject of approbation plainly dis- 
tinguishable from the disposition of the offerer. 

So little countenance indeed does the scriptural 
account of this transaction afford to those who main- 
tain that sacrifice originated in human reason, that 
we might, in the case of Cain, contend with greater 
justice and probability, that human reason had un- 
warrantably and presumptuously interfered to alter 
the mode of worship prescribed by God. With re- 
gard also to Abel, it would be more consistent with 
the discoveries of revelation to suppose, that his pas- 
toral occupation had been taken up, as the conse- 
quence of a Divine institution to which it was sub- 
servient, than that the mode of worship he per- 
formed was suggested by the employment which he 
followed. 

In the language of those theologians against whom 
we contend, we find the greatest stress laid upon 
the dictates of natural reason, the circumstances and 
habits of life of the earliest sacrificers. Whether 
such causes are in themselves adequate to the pro- 

•1 Ilcb. ix. 22. 



Origin of Sacrifice, 205 

duction of the effect ascribed to them, is a consi- 
deration not only important, but necessary, towards 
a just determination of the question at issue. It 
will therefore be deserving of brief inquiry, whether 
reason, guided by nature only, and prompted by cir- 
cumstance, would have been likely to impel the hu- 
man conduct in that direction which these divines 
maintain that it would have taken. 

Let us then contemplate the human mind, left to 
its free operations, uncontrolled by any command of 
God, and wholly unassisted by Divine instruction. 
To a mind thus circumstanced, what fitness or pro^ 
priety could possibly discover itself in the practice of 
sacrifice ? What imaginable ground could occur for 
a belief, that the death of a victim possessed any in- 
herent virtue towards pacifying the Divine anger, or 
conciliating the Divine favour ? In the slaughter of 
inoffensive brutes ; in the destruction by fire of such 
things, as might otherwise have been subservient to 
the wants and necessities of human life ; what is 
there here that could, in its intrinsic character, ever 
be viewed by reason under the light of nature only, 
as a fit means of testifying our subjection to God, or 
of obtaining pardon for sin^ ? Could, that which is 
loathsome and disgusting to the natural feelings of 
man, have been thought of as a probable gratifica- 
tion to the purity of God ? An ancient poet has the 
following strong and pointed reflection on this sub- 
ject : 

^ Wilkins on the Principles and Duties of Natural Religion, 
b. i. c. 12. p. 182. ed. 1675. 



206 Origin of Sacrifice. 

Tic, wis [xoopo^ xoii XiOLV avEiixsvos, 
'EvTTKrTog avdpoov, oa-ri^ sXtti^si ^soug, 
Oa-Tctiv ocaapKCJOV xai %oX>]f ttu^oujW-svtjj, 
'A xcti KV(nv 7reivoo(riv ov^i (Spcocrifjioiy 
'Kocipsiv uTroiVTag, kui yspag Aap^eiv Tods ^. 

Reason, if it discard the aid of scripture, must be 
baffled in every attempt to explain, or to discover, 
the slightest connexion between the means and the 
end. It must then be perfectly incredible that this 
faculty should, without assistance or direction, have 
conducted mankind to the observance of such a prac- 
tice. 

Such is the difficulty of accounting, on any grounds 
purely rational, for the introduction of a bloody rite 
into the ceremonial of religious worship. But of 
this difficulty we have not yet seen the whole : it 
will be greatly enhanced, if we advert to the situa- 
tion of those among whom sacrifice is known to 
have first prevailed. 

This indeed is necessary in order to a just deter- 
mination of the question. If we would form a cor- 
rect judgment of the course of action which men, 
under any particular circumstances, would be likely 
to pursue, we must dismiss the prejudices arising 
from the customs of our own age, and from a pre- 
vious knowledge of those which have existed in the 
world. Regard must be had to their habits and con- 
ditions, and to the feelings which would naturally be 
associated with their situation. Thus, with regard to 
the earliest sacrificers : their sentiments are not to be 

5 Incert. Poet, apud Porph. de Abst. lib. ii. 



Origin of Sacrifice. 207 

estimated by the ordinary feelings of men, inured to 
the destruction of life as the means of providing suste- 
nance. The antediluvian inhabitants of the world, 
in the transactions of whom we meet with the earliest 
record of sacrifice, derived their subsistence from the 
fruits and vegetable productions of the earth, with- 
out the wilful infliction of death or suffering on any 
living creature. In such a race of men, it is reason- 
able to believe, that an abhorrence of bloodshed 
would have been a deeply rooted and predominating 
sentiment. In what light then, had they obeyed 
no impulse but that of nature, would they have 
viewed the perpetration of bloodshed in the services 
of religion ? The force and character of the feelings 
which would have been generated by such habits of 
life, may be very correctly estimated from the follow- 
ing beautiful lines : 

" Quid meruistis, oves, placidum pecus, inque tuendos 

'' Natum homines, pleno quae fertis in ubere nectar ? 

" Mollia quae nobis vestras velamina lanas 

" Prsebetis ; vitaque magis quam morte juvatis. 

" Quid meruere boves, animal sine fraude dolisque 

" Innocuum, simplex, natum tolerare labores ? 

" Immemor est demum, nee frugum munere dignus, 

" Qui potuit, curvi demto modo pondere aratri, 

" Ruricolam mactare suum : qui trita labore 

" lUa, quibus toties durum renovaverat arvum, 

" Tot dederat messes, percussit colla securi. 

" Nee satis est quod tale nefas committitur : ipsos 

" Inscripsere Deos sceleri ; numenque supernum 

" Caede laboriferi credunt gaudere juvenci. 

" Victima labe carens et praestantissima forma 

" {Nam placuisse nocet) vittis praesignis et auro, 

" Sistitur ante aras : auditque ignara precantem : 

" Imponique suae videt inter cornua fronti 



208 Origin of Sacrifice. 

" Quas coluit fruges ; percussaque sanguine cultros 
" Inficit in liquida prsevisos forsitan unda^" 

So little ground is there for supposing, that sacri- 
fice could have resulted from any process of reason- 
ing to which the circumstances and situation of the 
first worshippers may have given rise ! Far from 
possessing in itself any thing congenial to the na- 
tural sentiments of the human mind, it is infinitely 
more probable that it would, in the infancy of our 
species, if it had not been propounded by supreme 
authority, have been encountered by the strongest 
feelings of repugnance and disgust. The existence 
of a sanguinary rite of worship in union with those 
habits and feelings to which we refer, may therefore 
with more justice be contemplated, as the triumph of 
faith over the suggestions of nature, than as an act 
of obedience to her dictates. 

But " the rude simplicity of primeval life" is much 
insisted on by Spencer, as a consideration which 
tends to soften the difficulties connected with a be- 
lief in the human institution of Sacrifice. The fal- 
lacy of his argument is of that kind which frequently 
results from the employment of loose and indeter- 
minate language. If, by a rude simplicity of cha- 
racter, we are to understand, an ignorance of those 
polished arts and refinements which grow up with 
the progress of civilization ; this indeed may truly 
be ascribed to these primitive worshippers. And 
this, we might justly suppose, was the only significa- 
tion which the terms were intended to express : 
since we find that signification illustrated by alleging 

t Ov. Met. XV, 116. 



Oi^igin of Sacrifice, 209 

their ignorance of literature, and the nature of their 
garments, which consisted of the skins of beasts. 
But what is this to the purpose ? If on the other 
hand a more extended meaning be affixed to the 
terms ; if they be understood to express that gross- 
ness of conception respecting the Divine attributes, 
which Spencer ascribes to these early sacrificers ; 
then the inference must be resisted by a denial of 
the point which is thus unwarrantably assumed. 
For, can it be imagined, that the knowledge which 
Adam, in his state of original righteousness, possessed 
respecting the perfections of his Maker ; can it be 
imagined that this knowledge was entirely oblite- 
rated from his mind after the fall ? Such a supposi- 
tion is totally destitute of all countenance either 
from scripture or reason, and seems incompatible 
with the notion of our first parent's personal iden- 
tity in his twofold condition of an innocent and a 
fallen being. Then, if Adam retained this know- 
ledge after his fall, can we believe that he would 
neglect the instruction of his immediate offspring on 
a subject of such vital importance? Or, if he did 
not neglect it, that the knowledge thus imparted 
should have been so grossly disfigured in its trans- 
mission from father to son, and that during the life- 
time of the parent ? One of these suppositions, how- 
ever harsh and unreasonable, must plainly be ad- 
mitted, or the ground of argument can never be 
tenable. 

The former restricted sense of the words is plainly 
all that can be maintained ; and yet it is undeniable, 
that the more extended signification is that which 
has furnished the basis of the reasoning. This will 

p 



210 Origin of Sacrifice, 

appear from a citation of the author's words. " Why," 
says he, " should the primeval race of men endea- 
" vour by the oblation of gifts to conciliate the Di- 
" vine grace and favour? Why, but because they 
*' estimated God by the disposition of man, and 
" thought that gifts would have no less influence with 
" him than with their fellow-creatures ^\" Another 
passage from the same author will supply a fuller 
developement of the ideas expressed in the former 
citation. " According to the rude conceptions of 
" primitive times, God was estimated as a being 
" who would dispense all his bounties by the induce- 
" ment of gifts ; as if, like men, he could be in- 
*' fluenced by presents, or feel himself obliged by any 
*' liberality which was shewn him, to make an equal 
" return. Thus it was that the ancients carried on a 
" kind of traffic with their Maker, and conducted 
" themselves towards him as an usurer, who gave, 
" only in order that he might receive ^." 

Against that profane irreverence of sentiment 
which is here expressed in regard to the best and 
holiest of beings, piety may well exclaim. If such 
reasoning be justly entitled to any thing further 
than a strong expression of abhorrence and disgust, 

" " Quid enim homines primaevi muneribus oblatis gratiam et 
'* favorem divinum sibi conciliare studerent, nisi quod Deum ex 
•^ ingenio humano aestimantes, muncra non minus apud eum 
" quain homines valere judicarent ?" De Legg. p. 772. 

^ " Mv\ prisci ruditas opinata est, Deum omnia muneribus 
" concessurum ; quasi more humano, donis permulceri posset, 
" aut largitione quavis, ut paria cum iis faceret, obstringeretur. 
" Adeo lit nimdinationem quandam cum Deo exercerent veteres, 
'* et ita cum illo agerent, quasi foenerator esset, daretque tantum 
'* ut acciperet." Ibid. p. 7C4. 



Origin of Sacrifice. 211 

the confutation of it may be readily supplied. That 
God had respect to Abel's offering, is a plain proof 
that such offering was not presented under the in- 
fluence of those considerations to which it is thus 
ascribed : for these very considerations are, in the 
sacred word, and in relation to the subject of sacri- 
fice, unequivocally condemned as most offensive to 
the Divine purity. In order to evince the truth of 
this assertion, we will adduce a quotation from the 
fiftieth Psalm. Here the displeasure of God against 
sacrifice is strongly declared. For what reason, can 
w^e imagine, is this done ? God often declares him- 
self;, in other parts of his revealed word, pleased 
with such observances. The text itself will supply 
the explanation we want. " Hear, O my people, 
" and I will speak ; O Israel, and I will testify 
" against thee : I am God, even thy God. I will 
" not reprove thee for thy sacrifices or thy burnt 
" offerings, to have been continually before me. I 
" will take no bullock out of thy house, nor he goats 
" out of thy folds. For every heast of the forest is 
" mi7ie, and the cattle upon a thousand hills. I 
" know all the fowls of the mountains : and the 
" wild heasts of the field are mine. If 1 were 
" hungry, I would not tell thee : for the world is 
" mine, and the fulness thereof. Will I eat the 
'^ flesh of hulls, or d^ink the hlood of goats yT^ 
Sacrifice, which at other times is spoken of as an ac- 
ceptable service, is here described as an abomina- 
tion : and that, only by reason of its connexion with 
the very sentiments, by which, according to Spen- 

y Psalm 1. 7—13. 
P 2 



212 Origin of Sacrifice, 

cer, the sacrifice of Abel was suggested. For the 
offensive quality of such oblations is plainly declared 
to consist, first, in the notion of presenting a gift to 
the owner ; and secondly, in the profane absurdity of 
supposing, that the taste and smell of slaughtered 
victims could in themselves be pleasing to a holy 
and spiritual beings. 

Part of the above cited passage may appear, per- 
haps, rather at variance with our general views. " I 
" will take no bullock out of thy house, nor he goats 
" out of thy folds." But these words can on no ac- 
count be understood to convey an unqualified and 
unconditional condemnation of sacrifice, considered 
in the abstract : for this construction of them would 
be followed by consequences, which even those 
against whom we contend would be unwilling to ad- 
mit, or at least unable to maintain. On this view, 
the words can be understood to signify nothing less 
than an abrogation of the sacrificial ordinance : a 
supposition which, in regard to the date of this 
Psalm, is notoriously remote from the fact, and con- 
trary to the declared purposes of the Divine will. 
This interpretation being therefore plainly inadmis- 
sible, the true import of the sentence may be stated 
with greater probability, if we suppose it to express 
a declaration, that God would accept no sacrifices 
offered under the influence of those profane and 
gross conceptions, which, in the following verses, are 
marked with such strong reprobation. Or, they 
may be regarded as pointing to the fulness of future 
time, when sacrifice was to be done away, after the 

' Home on the Psalms. 



Origin of Sacrifice. SIS 

consummation of its mysterious import by the priest- 
hood of the Messiah. Or, thirdly, they may be in- 
tended to signify an instruction, that nothing fur- 
ther was exacted in the way of ritual observance be- 
yond the actual performances of the people who are 
thus addressed ; together with an intimation, that it 
was the spiritual, and not the ceremonial, part of a 
religious service, in the omission of which their de- 
ficiency consisted ^. This last exposition appears in- 
deed the most probable, by reason of the countenance 
it derives from the following verses, in which the 
defects of their worship are specifically denoted. 
" Offer unto God thanksgiving ; and pay thy vows 
" unto the most High : and call upon me in the 
" day of trouble : I will deliver thee, and thou shalt 
'^ glorify me." 

When the furious and malignant passions of Cain 
were roused by the rejection of his unhallowed ser- 
vice, we find that God condescended to expostulate 
with him on the indulgence of such unreasonable 
feelings. The words in which this remonstrance is 
expressed are very remarkable : they claim our most 
especial attention, because they cannot, on principles 
of sound interpretation, be easily reconciled to any 
supposition, which excludes from sacrifice the cha- 
racters of both a divine appointment and an expia- 
tory design. Such is the concurrent opinion of some 

^ The general design of the passage appears correctly stated in 
the following interpretation of the 8th verse : Q. d. " Quantum 
*' ad externa sacrificia, satis estis occupati : verum interna et prae- 
*• cipua (de quibus ver. 14.) negligitis. Sacrificia in V, T impro- 
" bantur tantum secundum quid, ratione scil. deficientis fidei, 
•' poenitentiae," &c. Poll Synopsis in Psal. 1. ver. 8. 

P 3 



214 Origin of Sacrifice. 

of the most learned and able expositors of the origi- 
nal text. '^ If thou doest well, shalt thou not be 
" accepted ? and if thou doest not well, sin lieth at 
''■ the door^." Of the expositors to whom I refer, it 
is the decided judgment, that the word which is 
here rendered sin, ought properly to have been 
translated by the term sin-offering, agreeably to the 
actual version of it in other parts of scripture. I 
will subjoin the words with the adoption of the pro- 
posed alteration : to which I will annex the para- 
phrase and remark of a distinguished critic. " ' Why 
** art thou ivroth f and ivhy is thy countenance 
" fallen "^ If thou doest well, shalt thou not he ac- 
" cepted, and if thou doest not well, a sin-offering 
" lieth even at thy door' As if he had said — Why 
" art thou so angry at the preference shewn to thy 
" brother, as if it were an instance of partiality in 
" me ; whereas it is only the effect of laws which I 
" had before declared : for knowest thou not, that if 
" thou dischargest thy duty fully, thou shalt be ac- 
*^ cepted ; and that if thou failest therein, I have ap- 
'' pointed an atonement for sin, by the sacrifice of an 
" animal that is entirely in thy power, near at hand, 
" and that coucheth or lieth down even before thy 
'' door ? — Here then we have God himself enforcing 
" the observation of animal sacrifice ; and command- 
" ing it, as the known remedy then provided for 
" the lapses of mankind c." It would be improper 
to dismiss the subject without observing, that the 
proposed substitution of the term sin-offering for 
sin, appears to convey the only admissible interpre- 

'• Gen. iv. 7. ' Kemiicotr's Two Dissertations, p. 217. 



Origin of Sacrifice, 215 

tation of the original : since an idiomatical pecu- 
liarity has been noticed in the expression thus trans- 
lated, by virtue of which that signification of it, and 
no other, can be consistent with grammatical pro- 
priety^. 

There is one remaining consideration, to which I 
conceive that an undue importance is not annexed, 
if we say, that it ought in candour to be regarded as 
decisive of the controversy. The grant of animal 
food to man was not till after the flood. Antece- 
dently to that period, we read of no permission to 
take away the life of brutes. Whence then did 
Abel derive his authority for the destruction of ani- 
mal life ? That he was authorized, there can be no 
doubt : for if he had not been, his bloody offering 
could not have obtained the acceptance and appro- 
bation of God. 

A celebrated writer on moral philosophy has the 
following observation. " It seems to me, that it 
" would be difficult to defend the right of killing 
" animals for food by any arguments which the light 
" and order of nature afford ; and that we are be- 
" holden for it to the permission recorded in Scrip- 
" ture. ' And God blessed Noah and his sons, and 
" said unto them. Be fruitful, and multiply, and re- 
" plenish the earth. And the fear of you and the 
" dread of you shall be upon every beast of the 
" earth, and upon every fowl of the air, upon 
" all that moveth upon the earth, and upon all the 
" fishes of the sea ; into your hand are they de- 
" livered. Every moving thing that liveth shall be 

'^ See Magee on Atonement, vol. ii. p. 244. 
P4 



216 Origin of Sacrifice. 

" meat for you ; even as the green herb have I given 
" you all things V" 

This is the remark of a clear and comprehensive 
mind, eminently distinguished by a talent, not only 
of reasoning skilfully, but also of poising the weight 
of evidence, and of nicely adjusting the balance of 
conflicting arguments. The foregoing citation from 
his writings cannot therefore but appear an impor- 
tant concession, respecting the impossibility of esta- 
blishing, by any unassisted process of the mind, the 
right of slaying animals for food. On what rational 
ground then can we establish the right of slaying 
them for sacrifice ? Cases may perhaps be supposed, 
such, for instance, as those of necessity and self- 
protection, in which for particular reasons the de- 
struction of life might be justified before the per- 
mission of animal food was granted. These may be 
alleged as exceptions to the general law : but in the 
number of these exceptions sacrifice cannot, on any 
principle which fairly applies to it, be included. On 
the whole therefore we contend, that the acceptable 
celebration of a sanguinary worship, cannot be ac- 
counted for consistently with the state of mankind 
in the antediluvian world, otherwise than by the ad- 
mission of its Divine appointment^. 

« Gen. ix. I, 2, 3. Paley's Moral and Political Philosophy, 
book ii. chap. 1 1 . 

^ ♦* We know that no being has a right to the lives of the 
*' creatures but their Creator, or those on whom he confers that 
** right : and it is certain that God had not yet given man a right 
" to the creatures, even for necessary food ; and much less for 
*' unnecessary cruelty. And therefore, nothing but his command 
" couhl create a right to take away their lives. It is also evident, 
" that killing an innocent creature cannot, in its own nature, bo 



Origin of Sacrifice. 217 

Among those who maintain the human original of 
sacrifice, it cannot be denied that there exists a con- 
siderable diversity of sentiment, in regard to the 
principles which are supposed to have dictated or 
suggested its introduction. Of the theories which 
have thus been framed, our attention has hitherto 
been confined to one. It will not, however, be ne- 
cessary to the purpose of a candid investigation, that 
the others should be examined with equal care : be- 
cause the arguments by which we have encountered 
the former will, if assented to, be found decidedly 
conclusive against the latter. Thus, it is con- 
tended by Warburton, that " the common senti- 
" ments of our nature would draw the first men into 
" this mode of worship ;" which is itself described by 
that great writer as an example of the " ancient 
" mode of converse by action in aid of words." 
" Some chosen animal," says he, " precious to the 
" repenting criminal, who deprecates, or supposed 
" to be obnoxious to the Deity, who is to be ap- 
" peased, was offered up and slain at the altar, in 
" an action, which, in all languages, when trans- 
" lated into words, speaks to this purpose, — * I con- 
" fess my transgressions at thy footstool, O my God ! 
" and, with the deepest contrition, implore thy par- 
" don ; confessing that I deserve death for these my 
" offences.' — The latter part of the confession was 

" properly said to be doing well. And therefore, since Abel is 
" acknowledged by God to have done well, in killing the firstlings 
" of his flock in sacrifice, it is evident he must have done this for 
" some very good and just reason ; and what reason could justify 
** him in doing it, but the command of God ?" Revelation ex- 
amined with Candour, vol. i, p. 132. 



218 Origin of Sacrifice. 

" more forcibly expressed by the action of striking 
" the devoted animal, and depriving it of life ; which, 
" when put into words, concluded in this man- 
" ner' — ' And I own that I myself deserve the death 
" which I now inflict on this animal ».' " But if the 
action itself should, under the circumstances con- 
nected with its first performance, appear (agreeably 
to the tenor of our former observations) calculated 
to provoke the strongest antipathies of nature, and 
to involve in it the cruel usurpation of a right which 
God had never conferred ; if this view be correct, it 
will necessarily follow, that such an action could 
never have occurred to the mind as a proper mode 
of pious and reverential intercourse with the Deity. 
Equally inadmissible, for the purpose of explaining 
a sacrifice which was observed many ages before the 
lawful use of animal food, will be the theory of an- 
other writer, who proposes to account for the human 
original of sacrifices by supposing, " that eating and 
" drinking together were the known ordinary sym- 
" bols of friendship, and were the usual rites of en- 
" gaging in covenants and leagues, and of renewing 
" and ratifying friendships ^\" From a detailed ex- 
amination of these several systems we feel ourselves 
exonerated, not only by a regard to the proper bre- 
vity of a subordinate inquiry, but by a respect for 
the proper object of all inquiry whatever, which is, 
the evidence of truth, and not the gratification of a 
controversial taste. For, as the evidence of truth in 
itself supplies the confutation of error, it therefore 
dispenses with a separate exposure of its fallacies : 

J' Div. Leg. b. ix. c. 2. vol. vi. pp. 27r), 27(). 
'' Sykes's Essay on Sacrifices, p. 73. 



Meaning of Sacrifice. 219 

and the traveller, who is satisfied that he is right in 
the path which he has chosen, can have no occasion 
to waste his time in the useless labour of exploring 
deviations. 



SECTION II. 

Meaning of Sacrifice. 

'H NEA AIA0HKH DAAAlOi KEXAPAFMENH TPAMMATI. 

Clem. Alex. Paedag. i. 7. 

THE foregoing inquiry respecting the origin of 
sacrifice will be properly followed by an examina- 
tion of its meaning. 

In pursuing this branch of the subject, it will, in 
the first place, be proper to state the view of it which 
w^e feel ourselves called upon to maintain. We con- 
tend then that Sacrifice, from the earliest date of its 
observance, and according to the purpose of its first 
institution, was distinguished by the following essen- 
tial characters and properties. It was a means of 
symbolical instruction appointed in order to the ex- 
piation of sin ; the instruction being conveyed by 
transferring, in representation, the imputation of sin 
from the guilty to the innocent, and by substituting, 
in representation also, the innocent in the place of 
the guilty, as the subject of punishment. In other 
words, it was both expiatory in its design, and vi- 
carious in its import. 

Towards establishing the justice of this view, 
clearness of method will best be consulted, if we first 
ascertain the character of sacrifice, considered ex- 
clusively as a provision of the Mosaic law. Having 
done this, we shall have gained a step of consider^ 



220 Meaning of Sacrifice, 

able importance towards facilitating our further pro- 
gress. 

I. With regard then to the import of sacrifice, 
viewed as a specific ordinance of the Mosaic in- 
stitution : here the difficulty of proof consists in the 
selection, rather than in the discovery, of arguments. 
From a variety of passages contained in the Penta- 
teuch, which afford a concurrent representation of 
this subject, I will first select a portion from the di- 
rections which are given respecting the first observ- 
ance of the passover : which is not indeed adduced 
as being so decisive of the point at issue as some 
others, but because the language employed is pecu- 
liarly striking, and appears to be hardly reconcile- 
able with any principles at variance with those which 
are here maintained. 

" And the blood shall be to you for a token upon 
" the houses where ye are : and when I see the 
" hlood, I will pass over you, and the plague shall 
" not be upon you to destroy you, when I smite the 
" land of Egypt. — For the Lord will pass through 
" to smite the Egyptians ; and when he seeth the 
" Mood upon the lintel, and on the two side posts, 
" the Lord will pass over the door, and will not 
" suffer the destroyer to come in unto your houses 
" to smite you^'' 

Let me here be allowed to quote the words of a 
venerable father of the primitive church. In the 
way of proof, indeed, no stress is laid upon them ; 
but they are illustrative of the subject, and contain 
a reflection highly just and appUcable to it. " As 

• Exod. xii. 13. 2'^. 



Meaning of Sacrifice. 2211 

*' the blood of the passover," says Justin Martyr, 
" saved those in Egypt, thus also the blood of Christ 
" will rescue from death those who believe. Would 
" God then have been liable to mistake in regard to 
" those who were to be spared, if this signal had not 
" been placed upon their doors ? Certainly not : but 
" it was done, because he proclaimed beforehand that 
" salvation which should be wrought for mankind 
" through the blood of Christ ^." 

We will however, in the next place, turn our at- 
tention to another sacrificial ordinance, by a regard 
to which, combined with some other texts which are 
explanatory of it, we shall be better able to come to 
a satisfactory and decisive conclusion as to the cha- 
racter of the Levitical sacrifice in general, and shall 
be able also to fix the application of the particular 
passage already cited to the subject, to which it is 
conceived to relate. This ordinance is that of the 
burnt offering: the mode of solemnizing which is 
prescribed at the beginning of the Book of Leviti- 
cus, and is, with regard to those essential points on 
which we chiefly insist, the same with the ritual 
prescribed on a variety of other occasions. 

" Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto 
" them. If any man of you bring an offering unto 
" the Lord, ye shall bring your offering of the cat- 
" tie, even of the herd, and of the flock. If his 
" offering be a burnt sacrifice of the herd, let him 
" offer a male without blemish : he shall offer it of 
" his own voluntary will at the door of the taber- 
" nacle of the congregation before the Lord. And 

^ Dial, cum Tryph. c. 1 IJ . 



222 Meaning of Sacrifice. 

" he shall put his hand upon the head of the burnt 
" offering ; and it shall be accepted for him to make 
" atonement for him. And he shall kill the bullock 
" before the Lord ; and the priests, Aaron's sons, 
" shall bring the blood, and sprinkle the blood round 
" about upon the altar that is by the door of the ta- 
^' bernacle of the congregation ^" 

We are here to observe, first, a promise that the 
sacrifice thus prescribed should be accepted as an 
atonement for the offerer. It must therefore, by 
virtue of the divine appointment, have been effectual 
for the purpose of expiation. Now the appointed 
means of that expiation consisted in the destruction 
of life, or in substituting an innocent life for one 
which was forfeited to justice; as will plainly ap- 
pear from a subsequent passage in the same book : 
" The life of the flesh is in the blood : and I have 
" given it to you upon the altar to make an atone- 
" ment for your souls : for it is the blood that maketh 
" an atonement for the soul"^" 

Again, our attention is especially due to the cere- 
mony of placing the hand upon the head of the vic- 
tim. Of this also an explanation is furnished in the 
directions, which, in another part of the same book, 
are given relating to the great day of expiation. 
" And Aaron shall lay both his hands upon the 
'* head of the live goat, and confess over him all the 
" iniquities of the children of Israel, and all their 
" transgi'essions in all their sins, putting them upon 
" the head of the goat, and shall send him away by 
" the hand of a fit man into the wilderness : and 

• Lev. i.2 — 5. "^ Lev. xvii. I 1. 



Meaning of Sacrifice, 223 

" the goat shall bear upon him all their iniquities 
" unto a land not inhabited : and he shall let go the 
" goat in the wilderness '^." Aided by this explana- 
tion, we are warranted in concluding, that the sa- 
crifice to which we refer was not only expiatory 
in its design, but also vicarious in its import. 

Another observation relating to this great day of 
annual solemnity will render our conclusion still 
more irresistible. By the employment of two goats 
in the sacrifice of that day, the general meaning and 
design of the ceremonial is exhibited in very striking 
and impressive characters. On this provision it is 
justly observed by an excellent and distinguished 
prelate : " The reason of this seems obvious. The 
" death of the animal was requisite to represent the 
'^ means by which the expiation was effected : and 
" the bearing away the sins of the people on the 
" head of the animal was reqmsite to exhibit the 
" effect ; namely, the removal of the guilt. But for 
" these distinct objects, two animals were necessary 
" to complete the sin offering °." 

Such then are the essential characters of the Le- 
vitical sacrifice. The guilt of the worshipper is 
emblematically imputed to the victim ; to the vic- 
tim also is emblematically transferred the punish- 
ment which had been incurred : hence there re- 
sults that atonement, which, by virtue of the Divine 
appointment, renders the sinner capable of pardon. 
And (on the leading principles of interpretation 
thus furnished to us) we contend that these discri- 

" Le\it. xvi. 21. " Magee on Atonement, vol. ii. p. 330. 



224 Meaning of Sacrifice, 

minating properties belong to every species of sa- 
crifice prescribed in the ritual of Moses : under- 
standing the term sacrifice in that restricted sense 
which we have before assigned to it. All such sa- 
crifices are both expiatory and vicarious. 

II. The way is now prepared for a further in- 
quiry into the character of sacrifice, with regard to 
its earliest observance and its universal prevalence. 

That sacrifice was from the beginning an ordi- 
nance of Divine appointment, is a position of which 
the proof has been already adduced. In the Levi- 
tical code it stands confessedly on that foundation. 
Here then we see the same law operating after two 
distinct periods of its enactment. At the first of these 
periods (to which we refer the sacrifice of Abel) the 
observance of the law is made known, but without 
any explanation of its design : at the second, both 
the law is promulgated, and the explanation of it is 
annexed. Now as the law itself is contemplated as 
emanating from the supreme wisdom of the un- 
changeable God, I see not how the following infe- 
rence can fairly be resisted ; namely, that the rea- 
son of it must have been the same in the first in- 
stance which it was avowedly in the second. 

There is another consideration from which the 
necessity of this inference is strikingly apparent. 
The employment of blood as an article of food is 
forbidden to the Israelites. " Whatsoever man there 
" be," says the Law, " of the house of Israel, or of 
" the strangers that sojourn among you, that eateth 
^' any manner of blood ; I will even set my face 
" against that soul that eateth blood, and will cut 



Meaning of Sacrifice. 225 

" him off from among his people?," But this prohi- 
bition, we are to observe, is not, at this period of its 
delivery, a new ordinance. It forms a part of that 
patriarchal law which had been delivered to Noah, 
and which had long been obligatory upon him and 
all his descendants. The old law is now, however, 
republished to the Israelites. On this occasion the 
reason of the prohibition, which had been stated, 
though less explicitly, before, is fully and distinctly 
annexed : " For the life of the flesh is in the blood : 
'^ and I have given it to you upon the altar to make 
" an atonement for your souls : for it is the blood 
" that maketh an atonement for the soul^." Here 
then we have the reason of the law which had many 
years before been delivered to Noah. Now Noah 
was himself a sacrificer : so was Abraham. Both of 
these were anterior to the law of Moses. The same 
reason must then be understood to apply to the sa- 
crifices which they offered ; and consequently their 
sacrifices must have had the same character which 
belongs to those of the Mosaical ritual. They must 
have been sacrifices of atonement for the soul^'. 

P Levit. xvii. 10. i Lev. xvii. 11. 

^ If a doubt should be started whether the law, at the two 
periods of its promulgation, was grounded on the same or on 
a different reason, that doubt must disappear on a comparison of 
the terms which are severally employed in Scripture in rela- 
tion to the two occasions. The reason is given in Leviticus 
thus : *' The life of the flesh is in the blood ^ and I have given it 
" to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls." 
This same reason, though not so fully, is at least sufficiently ex- 
pressed in the pro*hibition to Noah : " But flesh with the life 
*' thereof, which is the blood therefore, shall ye not eat." If fur- 

Q 



226 Meaning of Sacrifice. 

Sacrifice, then, at a time much earlier than the 
law of Moses, must have been both expiatory in its 
design and vicarious in its import. If we admit 
the validity of the reasoning which has been offered 
in support of this proposition, it must appear conclu- 

ther proof of this point were wanted, it would be found by re- 
ferring to a third occasion, where the same prohibitory law is 
delivered. Here the reason of the law is stated in an elliptical 
form, similar to that in which we find it annexed to the earliest 
prohibition which was delivered to Noah ; and yet nobody, I 
think, would contend, that the reason in this latter instance ^vas 
not intended to be precisely the same with that which is given 
in the above cited passage from Leviticus, The words are as 
follows : *' Only be sure that thou eat not the blood : for the 
" blood is the life; and thou mayest not eat the life with the 
*' flesh." Deut. xii. 23, That the reason delivered in Leviti- 
cus was not a reason of exclusive application to the Levitical 
ritual and the people of Israel, will be further evident from ex- 
amining the terms of the prohibition : for it will thus appear to 
have been equally obligatory upon Israelite and Gentile, as far 
as the law of Moses was capable of being enforced; and the 
reason on which it was grounded will be seen to apply in an 
equal degree to the condition of both. ** AVhatsoever man 
*' there be of the house of Israel, or of the strangers that sojourn 
" among you, that eateth any manner of blood ; I will even set 
*' my face against that soul that eateth blood, and will cut him 
" off from among his people. For the life of the flesh is in the 
'* blood : and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an 
" atonement for your souls : for it is the blood that maketh an 
" atonement for the soul. Therefore I said unto the children 
" of Israel, No soul of you shall eat blood, neither shall any 
'* stranger that sojourneth among you eat blood.'' Lev. xvii. 10, 
11, 12. Surely, after reading this, we cannot deny that blood 
was, to the Gentile as well as to the Israelite, and upon the same 
vicarious principle, the appointed means of making atonement for 
the soul. See Revelation examined with Candour, vol. ii. Dis- 
sert. I. 



Mean ing of Sacrifice. 227 

sive against Spencer, Warburton*^, and others, who 
maintain, that the sacrificial ordinance never as- 
sumed this character before the promulgation of 
the law : when, say they, it was copied from the su- 
perstitious observances of the idolatrous world, and 
remodelled on its introduction into the Mosaic code 
for the purpose of accommodation to the Christian 
scheme of redemption. 

The general conclusion deduced from that reason- 
ing must further appear to have a very extensive 
application. The reason for the prohibition of blood 
which is assigned in Leviticus, applies in an equal 
degree to the same interdiction as it was delivered 
to Noah. It tlierefore stamps upon his sacrifice the 
same expiatory and vicarious character which be- 
longs to the Levitical sacrifice. Again, the same 
interdiction is obligatory upon all the descendants 
of Noah who lived before the time of Christ ^ The 
reason of the interdiction must therefore equally ap- 
ply to them : and consequently, their sacrifices, so 
far as they retained the proper character belonging 
to the original design and first institution of this 
ordinance, must in like manner fall under the same 
description. And thus do we gain an insight into 
the proper design and essential meaning of sacrifice, 
as it hath prevailed among all the families of man- 

"* Spencer de Legg. lib. iii. Diss. II. Warburton's Div. Leg. 
"b. ix. C.2. 

* Whether it were obligatory after this time or not, I am not 
here called upon to decide. The arguments in favour of the affir- 
mative may be gathered from Delany, Revelation examined with 
Candour, vol. ii. Diss. II.; and those in support of the negative from 
Spencer de Legg. Diss, in Act. xv. 20. vol. i. p. 588. 

Q2 



228 Meanmg of Sacrifice. 

kind who have sprung from that second founder of 
the human race. 

III. It remains for us, lastly, to examine the na- 
ture of sacrifice as it was observed by Abel, and 
also (as we have a fair right to assume) by the 
other inhabitants of the antediluvian world. Let 
us therefore carry up our inquiry to a still higher 
point, in order that we may discover whether the 
same character belongs to it in this earliest period of 
its prevalence. 

We have seen then, that the eating of blood was 
forbidden to Noah and his posterity. Antecedently 
to this date, no such prohibition is upon record. 
That it is not, is a circumstance capable of a very 
plain and natural explanation. Such an injunction, 
at any earlier period, would have been nugatory, since 
this is the date of the first permission of animal 
food. " Every moving thing that liveth," says the 
sacred record, " shall be meat for you ; even as the 
" green herb have I given you all things. But 
" flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood 
'' thereof, shall ye not eat"." The reason for the 
prohibition of blood was, as we have seen, because 
it was invested with a sacred character as the ap- 
pointed instrument of atonement and expiation : 
and this character must have belonged to it as long 
as sacrifice had continued to be in use. The prohi- 
bition itself is grounded on the expiatory design of 
sacrifice : but the date of the prohibition is occa- 
sioned -by the simultaneous grant of animal food. 
And the sacred instrumentality of blood for the pur- 

" Gen. ix. 3, 4. 



Meaning of Sacrifice. 229 

pose of atonement, must appear to be recognised in 
this interdiction as belonging to an ordinance then 
existing. For sacrifice had been a rite of much 
earlier observance. It had been offered acceptably 
to God in the time of Adam : it had been offered ac- 
ceptably by Noah himself before this very command 
had been issued. Such being the case, our inference 
respecting the character of sacrifice must be ex- 
tended in its application to the antediluvian sacri- 
fices during the whole course of their observance. 
They also must have been both expiatory and vi- 
carious. 

Though the blood of brutes possess no intrinsic 
efficacy towards cleansing the defilements of a sin- 
ful creature ; yet it was, by a Divine ordinance, ren- 
dered available, and even necessary, for that purpose, 
through the operation of faith on the part of the 
worshipper. It is declared in the writings of Moses, 
that " it is the blood that maketh atonement for the 
" soul^." " Almost aU things," says the apostle to 
the Hebrews, " are by the law purged with blood ; 
" and without shedding of blood is no remission >\" 
This is not a principle exclusively attached to the 
Levitical system. It was, as we have seen^ before 
the existence of that system, a principle on which, in 
the article of sacrifice, the universal religion of man- 
kind was established. It is the only scriptural prin- 
ciple on which the sacrificial rite can be explained. 
It is the only scriptural principle on which the for- 
giveness of man is made compatible with the attri- 
butes of his Maker. The sacrificial ceremony, in- 

^ Levit. xvii. 11. >• Heb. ix. 22. 

Q 3 



230 Meaning of Sacrifice. 

deed, before the Gospel, is emblematical, and its 
efficacy sacramental : under the Gospel, the sacrifice 
of Christ is real and effectual. But still, with a due 
observance of this distinction, we are justified in 
the terms we have employed respecting it. It is a 
principle alike recognised and attested in the Levi- 
tical sacrifice, and in the Christian sacrament. 

It will not be unsuitable to observe in this place, 
that there always have been in the church of God 
certain instituted ordinances, appointed as the ve- 
hicles for conveying the assurance and experience 
of the Divine favour, and in the right observance of 
which, man, by the expression of his faith, may be 
qualified to partake of that favour. This at least 
has been the case, where Scripture has been explicit 
in its communications : and we are warranted by 
the general principle of inductive reasoning, in con- 
cluding that it has been so where Scripture is less 
decisive. 

Shall we then say, that the holy worshippers of 
God before the flood were destitute of any sacra- 
mental means of Divine appointment, by which they 
might, in the exercise of faith, obtain remission of 
sin ? Such an opinion is plainly irreconcileable with 
what is recorded respecting the faith and piety of 
Abel, Enoch, and Noah : for these primitive wor- 
shippers doubtless stood in need of atonement, and 
doubtless must have had the benefit of it; other- 
wise they could not have rendered that acceptable 
service to God, which we are assured that they did. 
Is it not more reasonable, after having traced the 
sacrifice of Abel to the command of God, to take 
the explanation of that observance from God him- 



Meaning of Sacrifice. 231 

self, who says, ^' It is the blood that maketh atone- 
'' ment for the soul ?" 

On the grounds which have now been stated, we 
maintain, that sacrifice must have had the same ex- 
piatory design and vicarious import as an antedilu- 
vian ordinance, which we have proved to belong to 
it in the later ages of its observance. 

Thus, by three progressive steps of inquiry, and 
under three divisions which embrace the whole com- 
pass of the subject, we have endeavoured, we trust 
successfully, to fix and ascertain the genuine cha- 
racter of the sacrificial ordinance, connected with its 
first appointment, and actually belonging to it in 
every instance of its right observance, throughout 
the utmost extent and duration of its prevalence. 
We have endeavoured to prove, that this character 
is the same with that which is explicitly fixed and 
defined in the Levitical code. The properties there- 
fore, thus essentially belonging to it as a Mosaical 
ordinance, may justly be ascribed to the same ordi- 
nance in its primitive and more diffusive observ- 
ance. It may assist towards a just conception of 
these properties, if we observe, that it is designated 
by the apostle to the Hebrews as " a shadow of 
" good things to come^;" and that the building ap- 
pointed for its solemnization is spoken of as " a 
" figure for the time then present, in which were 
^' offered both gifts and sacrifices, that could not 
" make him that did the service perfect as per- 
" taining to the conscience ^." We are also to ob- 
serve, that the blood of bulls and of goats, which 
constitutes a part of the shadow or outline, is by 

2 Hebrews x. 1 . ^ Hebrews ix. 9. 

Q 4 



232 Meaning of Sacrifice. 

tlie same apostle contrasted with the blood of Christ 
himself, wherewith " he entered in once into the 
" holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for 
" us ^." And independently of the characters be- 
longing to the Levitical sacrifice, we find the me- 
ritorious blood of Christ designated as " the blood 
" of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that 
" of Abel ^:" the blood of Abel plainly denoting in 
this place, as the tenor of argument requires us 
to understand, the blood of his sacrifice, and the 
style of expression manifestly implying an affinity, 
as well as declaring an inferiority, in his sacrifice 
to that of Christ. These various expressions suffi- 
ciently indicate, with regard to the sacrificial ordi- 
nance in general, its emblematical reference to that 
great meritorious sacrifice of infinite value, which 
is to a fallen and sinful race the only fountain of 
pardon, sanctification, and eternal life. But a fuller 
discussion of this point will form the proper object 
of the following section. 



SECTION III. 



The use and importance of Sacrifice considered as a subor- 
dinate and temporary provision belonging to the general 
plan of revealed religion. 

'Ew5 fji€v ovv ovhTtco TO KPEITTON, cv^e TO MEFA KAI TIM ION 
KM 0EOnPEnE2 2*AriON itaprjv ai/dpu^mii, rai^ S<a '^coav $v<Tiai<; 
ATTPA TH2 'EATTON ZHHS KAI ANTI^I^TXA TH2 OIKE1A2 
ipT^EQ.'E Trpoa-vjKOvrai; ccitohdovai xpr^v ry ©eo). — — ^— EireiSoj Se TO 
TEAEION nap-fjv, Toiq tcov Trpo(l)y]Twv uKoKovOcoq Oeainaf^aca-i, riEIIATTO 

b Hebrews ix. 1 2. ^ Hebrews xii. 24. See Magee on 

Alonement, p. 58. and No. LXVHI. 



Uses of Sacrifice. 233 

TA nPOTA KAI AEATTO HAPAXPHMA AIA TH2 TOT KPEITTO- 
N02 KAI AAH0OT2 'IEP0TPriA2. Eusebii Demonst. Evang. 
I. JO. 

THE universal observance of the sacrificial rite 
previously to the time of our Saviour, is a fact, the 
certainty of which is established by numerous con- 
current testimonies. Indeed there are few truths 
which have less been the subject of debate. We 
may add, that the notion of its expiatory and vica- 
rious character has, generally speaking, been com- 
mensurate with its prevalence*^. The rite itself has 
indeed been perverted to the worship of improper 
objects; it has been intermixed with the false su- 
perstitions of the pagan world : but still the observ- 
ance of it, during the specified period, was universal, 
and the notions entertained respecting its purport 
and meaning were generally agreeable to those 
leading principles which it has been our desire to 
establish. 

Where now can you discover an adequate cause 
for so extensive an effect ? When you contemplate 
an usage and a sentiment so widely prevailing, so 
deeply rooted, and so long established; will you 
suppose, that they can have had their origin in the 
crude, the arbitrary, and the variable, fancies of 
men, which fluctuate in every age, and climate, and 
nation, and, we might almost say, in every indivi- 
dual? If not, there is but one alternative Which 
you can reasonably choose : and that is, to regard 

^ Of this point satisfactory proof is aiforded by an induction of 
particulars gathered from various authors, in Outram de Sacr. 
c. xxii., and still more at large in Archbishop Magee's work on 
Atonement and Sacrifice, Diss. Nos. v. and xxxiii. It is also fully 
admitted by Sykes. Essay on Sacrifices, pp. 12 J, 303, 310. 



234 Uses of Sacrifice. 

it as an institution resulting in the first instance 
from a Divine appointment, and afterwards diffused 
and perpetuated by traditionary or other records 
through the mass of mankind. 

With regard to the extent of its reception, sacri- 
fice stands upon the same footing with those funda- 
mental truths of natural religion, the existence of a 
God, and the immortality of the soul : and the rea- 
soning by which the truth of these latter doctrines 
is made an inference from their universality, is 
equally applicable to the former. " Non id collocu- 
" tio hominum, aut consensus effecit : non institu- 
'* tis opinio est confirmata, non legibus. Omni au- 
" tern in re, consensio omnium gentium lex naturae 
'' putanda est ^." Let us only be allowed to un- 
derstand by a law of nature, what it properly means, 
namely, an ordinance of God ; and then the fore- 
going remark of Cicero will justly apply to our pre- 
sent subject. 

This indeed is a consideration of some weight in 
its bearing on the present branch of our inquiry : 
the object of which is, to illustrate the importance 
of the sacrificial rite as a subordinate and a tem- 
porary provision in the general plan of revealed re- 
ligion. 

In pursuing this division of the subject, our first 
step will be, to fix and determine what efficacy was, 
by virtue of the Divine appointment, attached to the 
observance of sacrifice. This was either real, or 
sacramental. 

The patriarchal or extra-Levitical sacrifice pos- 

Tusc. Disp. I. 13. 



Uses of Sacrifice. 235 

sessed a sacramental efficacy towards obtaining par- 
don, and conciliating the Divine favour. This sa- 
cramental efficacy would, however, depend on the 
qualifications of the w orshipper. Without faith and 
repentance it would be not only unavailing for the 
benefit of the offerer, but even offensive to the Deity. 
This might be made to appear by numerous cita- 
tions from Scripture, the general purport of which 
is expressed in the words of the Son of Sirach : 
" The most High is not pleased with the offerings of 
" the wicked ; neither is he pacified for sin by the 
" multitude of sacrifices^." 

Such was the essential nature of sacrifice con- 
nected with its first appointment and true design. 
The law of Moses made no alteration in this its 
essential character, but only prescribed additional 
regulations respecting the occasions, and the manner, 
of its observance. The sacramental efficacy of the 
patriarchal ordinance belonged therefore in an equal 
degree to the Levitical : but the latter possessed ex- 
clusively a real efficacy which did not belong to the 
former. This was either political, which rendered 
it available towards protecting the Israelite from 
the temporal penalty denounced by law ; or else 
ceremonial, in which respect it was effectual in cleans- 
ing him from those defilements, by which he was 
disqualified from joining in the external services of 
the legal worship. But in no case whatever did 
sacrifice, whether Levitical or patriarchal, possess 
any real efficacy towards clearing the offender in the 
sight of God to whom satisfaction was due : for it is 

^ Ecclus. xxxiv. 19. 



236 Uses of Sacrifice. 

impossible that the blood of bulls and of goats should 
take away sin. 

As a further step towards the illustration of our 
subject, we will proceed to analyse the nature of sa- 
crifice, after a manner similar to that, by which we 
divide a whole into its component parts, or a com- 
pound body into its separate ingredients. 

It may be said then to consist of two parts, a sa- 
crament and an emblem. As a sacrament, it was 
the appointed means of conveying to the faithful 
worshipper the pardon of his sins and acceptance 
with God. As an emblem, it was designed to be 
the vehicle of instruction. And the kind of instruc- 
tion it was intended to convey, would naturally be 
suggested by the contemplation of its piacular and 
vicarious character. It would be viewed, to use the 
words of an excellent prelate, " as a sensible and 
" striking representation of a punishment, which 
'' the sinner was conscious he deserved from God's 
" justice : and then, on the part of God, it would 
"be a public declaration of his holy displeasure 
'^ against sin, and of his merciful compassion to the 
" sinner ^." 

Such was the instruction afforded to mankind by 
sacrifice. And herein do we discover some of the 
leading outlines of that stupendous plan for the re- 
covery of fallen man, which the Gospel hath in 
these latter days exhibited to mankind in a com- 
plete and perfect form. 

It was an appointment of infinite wisdom, that 
the great consummation of sacrifice by the cruci- 

f' Magec on Atonement and Sacrifice, vol. i, p. 40. 



Uses of Sacrifice. 227 

fixion of the Son of God should not be carried into 
effect, till mankind for a long series of ages had ex- 
perienced the evils connected with their fallen state, 
and resulting from the first transgression. By the 
same wisdom it was decreed, that the mystery of 
our redemption should be hid from ages and from 
generations. But the Lamb of God was, in the 
eternal purpose of God, slain before the foundation 
of the world : and numbers have been saved through 
his merits before the Divine purpose was actually 
fulfilled, numbers to whom, though the general pro- 
mise of a deliverance was known, the manner of 
that deliverance was never unfolded. Meantime, 
while the great design was in preparation and pro- 
gress, while it was veiled under an awful darkness, 
impenetrable to mortal eyes ; it was fit that man 
should be taught, what was his own condition by na- 
ture, and what was the relation in which he stood to 
his Creator. This, I say, was fit, in order that he 
might be qualified for mercy and acceptance on such 
terms, as should be consistent with the inviolable at- 
tributes of God, and should not derogate from the 
authority of that law, which the Divine holiness was 
concerned to maintain. 

Such was the use of that instruction which sacri- 
fice was designed to afford. Man was hereby brought 
to feel and to acknowledge his guilty character and 
helpless condition ; he saw, in the mode of worship 
prescribed for him, an affecting representation of 
that punishment which he had incurred ; he was 
made sensible, that an awful satisfaction was due to 
the Divine justice before he could be capable of par- 
don : and yet, he was cheered with an assurance, 



238 Uses of Sacrifice. 

that the Deity was not implacable, but that mercy 
might in some way or other be obtained. But how 
the Divine perfections of mercy and justice could be 
brought to cooperate harmoniously for his welfare, 
this he never could understand : because he enjoyed 
no distinct knowledge that the Son of God would 
die for the expiation of his sins. 

Thus was the plea of self-righteousness put to 
silence, and the humility of the contrite was raised 
into hope ; and thus were laid the great foundations 
of an evangelical justification before the Gospel itself 
was published. The darkness of natural ignorance, 
under which religious hope and comfort, together 
with every incitement to obedience, v/ould have been 
extinct, was relieved by a slender light, till the Sun 
of righteousness should himself arise and confer a 
more abundant illumination. 

Sacrifice, being thus appointed as an instrument of 
symbolical instruction, becomes a standing ordinance. 
The celebration of it must be repeated, in order to 
perpetuate the instruction and to hand it down to 
succeeding generations. And the repetition must 
be frequent, in order to keep alive those principles 
of faith, those sentiments of piety, and those en- 
couragements to obedience, which it was designed 
to awaken and cherish. 

The reason is now plain why this ordinance 
should be discontinued under the Gospel. The sa- 
crificial rite conveyed, in the way of symbolical in- 
struction, those principles which were to be embraced 
l)y the faith of mankind in order to their acceptance 
with God : but the symbol was no longer necessary, 
^vhen the same instruction was afforded in a more 



Uses of Sacrifice. 239 

perfect manner, and a more abundant measure, by the 
reality which that symbol represented. Whatever 
was taught to mankind by sacrifice, is taught to 
them more fully, by the doctrine of our redemption 
through the cross of Christ. Agreeably to this 
view, the cessation of sacrifice is explained to us in 
the word of truth on these principles. " Christ 
" hath appeared once in the end of the world to put 
" away sin by the sacrifice of himself^." " He hath 
" been once offered to bear the sins of many\" 
" He hath taken away the first," namely, the sym- 
bolical sacrifice, '*' that he might estabhsh the se- 
" cond^," namely, the real and effectual sacrifice of 
himself. Of him it had been previously declared, 
long before the extinction of the old economy, that 
" he should cause the sacrifice and the oblation to 
" ceased" That frequency of repetition which cha- 
racterized the old sacrificial system, is now become 
needless. For as to any real efficacy towards the 
expiation of sin, they had none. They never could 
make the comers thereunto perfect : else they would 
have ceased to be offered. But this efficacy has 
been supplied by the meritorious sacrifice of Christ. 
In this view, then, the retention of the symbol must 
be unnecessary after the reality has arrived. And 
as to the instruction^ which was darkly and symboli- 
cally conveyed in sacrifice, this is plainly enunciated 
in the Gospel : in which the type is superseded by 
the substance, and the outline by the perfect form. 
But we have stated that the sacrificial rite was 



^^ Heb. ix, 26. ' lb. ix. 28. i^ lb. x. 9. 

' Dan. ix. 27. 



240 Uses of Sacrifice, 

partly sacramental. With reference to this point, a 
few observations may here be fitly introduced. 

It has in every age of the church (agreeably to a 
remark we formerly made) been a rule of the Divine 
government, to appoint certain outward ordinances, 
as the means of conveying to mankind the benefits 
which issue from the mercy of God : and the ob- 
servance of these ordinances has been required on 
the part of men, as the commanded expression of 
that faith, by which they were to qualify themselves 
for the experience of those benefits. Of this nature 
were sacrifice and circumcision before the Gospel ; 
Baptism and the Lord's Supper under it. 

We have shewn that sacrifice, considered as a 
vehicle of instruction, became unnecessary under 
the Gospel ; because the emblematical lesson which 
it taught was more fully and directly conveyed under 
the latter dispensation. Viewed however as a sa- 
crament, it stands upon a different footing. In this 
character, the further continuance of that specific 
ordinance would have been useless : it would like- 
wise have been degrading to the awful mystery 
which it had been employed to shadow out. Some 
corresponding ordinance was however wanting, as 
a standing means of grace, to supply its room. Sa- 
crifice therefore being abrogated, a different ordi- 
nance is introduced in its place. Thus have we, in 
the Christian church, in agreement with the institu- 
tion of its Divine founder, another symbolical re- 
presentation of the great sin offering by which our 
redemption is effected. As the legal and patriarchal 
sacrifices had a prospective regard, so has the Lord's 



Uses of Sacrifice. 241 

supper a retrospective. The former was designed 
to convey instruction : the latter is intended to 
awaken remembrance. " Do this," says our Lord, 
" in remembrance of me." The instruction related 
to the guilt of man, and the satisfaction which was 
due to God. The remembrance points backward to 
that satisfaction which actually has been made, and 
calls forth a sense of those practical obligations 
which result from it. Both the ordinances were 
designed as the vehicles of benefit to those who 
duly partake of them : but the benefits connected 
with the Christian sacrament are far more abundant, 
or at least far more distinctly unfolded, than those 
connected with the other. 

As a principal use of sacrifice, before the coming 
of Christ, consisted in the instruction afforded by its 
symbolical character ; so does a corresponding use- 
fulness result from it, as a matter of historical re- 
cord, now that its obligation as a religious ordinance 
hath ceased. That which before the Gospel was a 
symbol, or instructive similitude, is now discovered 
to be a type, or proleptical representation of some- 
thing future™. In its symbolical character, the an- 

"" The following explanation of types and symbols will assist 
towards illustrating the purport of the remarks contained in this 
section. " Typus (quatenus vox ista sensum habet theologicum) 
" ita definiri posse videtur, ut sit futuri alicujus symholum quod- 
*' rfam, aut exemplum ita a Deo comparatum, ut ipsius plane insti- 
" tuto futurum illud prcefiguret. Quod autem ita praefiguratur, 

'* illud antitypus dici solet. Idem inter typum et symbolum in- 

'• terest, quod inter genus et partem, ^que enim Symbolum 
" dici potest, quod prsesens aliquod aut prseteritum, ac quod (quae 

*' typi ratio est) futurum aliquid adumbraverit.- Antitypus in 

" typi locum succedit, eumque adeo loco movet ; ut simul atque 

R 



24^ Uses of Sacrifice, 

cient worshipper learned from it, that satisfaction 
was due to God for the sins of man. As a type, we 
learn from it, that the purpose of God, respecting the 
mode of reconciling the world to himself, was in all 
ages the same ; and we obtain from it an attestation 
to the person of the Messiah, similar to that which is 
afforded by prophecy, and differing from it only as 
an information by action differs from an information 
by words. 

It remains for us to state with brevity the appli- 
cation of the principles deduced from the foregoing- 
reasonings, to the general purpose we have in view. 

That the Divine dispensations with regard to fallen 
man have, through every period of time, been con- 
ducted on a plan of harmony with the Christian 
scheme of redemption : that the hopes of a future 
life which God has, in various successive ages, afforded 
to the world, have uniformly been grounded on a 
basis congenial to the gospel of Christ : that his sa- 
cred ordinances have been invariably designed to se- 
parate such hopes from every self-righteous plea on 
the part of his worshippers ; and to infuse into those 

** antitypus adsit, nullus deinceps typo locus, nullus usus reperia- 
** tur. Deinde, (quod maxime advertendum) id inter antitypum 
" et typum interest, quod quae revera in antitypo vis inest, ea non 
'• nisi specie terms, aut gradu longe exiliori in typo extiterit. Enim- 
** vero quamvis (quod ante dictum est) typus nonnunquam rem 
*' aliquam cum antitypo suo communem habuerit, ea tamen res 
" multo minus in typo, quam in antitypo, semper valet ; quemad- 
" modum mors earum victimarum, quibus mors Christi adumbra- 
*' batur, longe minorem apud Deum hominesque vim habuit, quam 
" quai ad mortem Christi pertinet." Outram de Sacr, 1. xviii. 
|. 1,2. 



Uses of Sacrifice. M3 

who cherished them, a renunciation of merit and a 
conviction of personal guilt : these are the principles 
which we have chiefly endeavoured to establish. 
Towards the attainment of these ends the sacrificial 
ordinance was manifestly subservient. For, had the 
belief of a future state been left unguarded by any 
corrective, we can hardly doubt that it would have 
been grossly perverted by human pride. Thus would 
man, polluted by nature, and guilty by actual trans- 
gression, in presenting himself before his Maker as 
a candidate for immortal happiness, have claimed the 
joys of heaven as a debt owing to him from the 
justice of God. But these towering pretensions, so 
hostile to the doctrine of the cross, must sink into 
dust, when that worshipper of God beholds, in a 
mode of adoration prescribed by God himself, a re- 
presentation of that blood which was to be poured 
out for the expiation of his sins. Man, when he 
worshipped his Creator through the medium of sa- 
crifice, must have felt, if he worshipped him aright, 
that he had no foundation of merit on which to rest 
his pretensions ; that he was in himself the proper 
object of displeasure, not of favour; and that he 
ought therefore to come unto God, not as a claimant 
of justice, but as a delinquent and a suppliant for 
mercy. Sacrifice was both designed and adapted to 
teach him this lesson. The feelings thus excited 
would harmonize with that scheme of redemption 
which was hereafter to be disclosed. They would 
qualify men to receive, according to the gracious 
purpose of God, the destined benefit which was to 
be obtained by the atonement of a Redeemer. 

R 2 



244 Uses of Sacrifice. 

The same feelings would prepare and dispose man- 
kind to embrace the faith of that Redeemer, when it 
should be proposed to them. 

We have said, that without a corrective of this 
nature, the hopes of mankind respecting a future 
life would naturally have been associated with a re- 
liance on human merit. How could it have been 
otherwise, if, without the instruction thus afforded, 
they had been blessed with the hope of everlasting 
happiness ? Man could not have discovered his own 
inherent guilt and corruption under the light of na- 
ture and the guidance of his own reason : this is 
one of those truths, which the natural man is not 
capable of embracing, and which revelation only can 
make known to us. While future life was hoped for, 
and the anticipated blessing was viewed in its pro- 
per connexion with, and dependence on, the moral 
conduct of man ; it would not have been possible 
for human blindness to have helped confounding the 
necessary condition with the meritorious cause. Had 
the repentance of a sinner been thus supplanted by 
the pride of imaginary virtue, and the justice of 
God been challenged for that reward which could 
issue only from his mercy, it is plain that the ac- 
ceptance of man would have been incompatible with 
those inviolable attributes of the Deity, which reve- 
lation has discovered to us. 

If the law had expressly promised life, the natural 
inference would have been, that the law could give 
life, and consequently that the gospel dispensation 
was unnecessary. If the hope of eternal life had 
been afforded separately from that instruction which 



I 



Uses of Sacrifice. 245 

sacrifice conveys, then eternal life would have been 
claimed as the reward of merit. Sacrifice was there- 
fore appointed, as a measure of subservience to the 
necessary instruction and discipline of those ages, 
during which a full developement of the evangelical 
scheme would have been premature. 

While the sacrificial ordinance was thus adapted 
to operate as a guard against the abuse to which the 
doctrine of a future state was liable, it would at the 
same time yield the strongest support and confirma- 
tion to that doctrine itself 

The original and inborn corruption of the human 
race, indeed, is a doctrine, which man by nature 
cannot discover, and to which, even when favoured 
with better guidance, he frequently evinces no little 
repugnance. But as to the actual guilt of each in- 
dividual, the consciousness of this must be inherent 
in every mind, which has been instructed in the com- 
mon principles of moral obligation. How then by 
a being, thus labouring under an inward conviction of 
guilt, could the hope of eternal life have been war- 
rantably entertained ? To him sacrifice, viewed as a 
divine institution, would open a door of hope : it 
would convey an assurance in unison with the true 
foundation of a believer's confidence. Being of univer- 
sal prevalence, it would speak with an authority, little 
inferior to a dictate or an instinct of nature^ proclaim- 
ing to mankind the placabihty of God ^ and the pos- 

" " The various methods of propitiation and atonement which 
'* fear and folly have dictated, or interest and artifice tolerated, in 
" the different parts of the world, however they may sometimes re- 
" proach and degrade humanitv-, at least shew the general consent 
" of all ages and nations in their opinion of the placability of the 

R 3 



246 Uses of Sacrifice, 

sibility of their own forgiveness. Thus would the 
hope of a future life at once be strengthened and 
placed upon its right basis. Thus would man be put 
in possession of that great evangelical principle, in 
which God has provided the springs of comfort to a 
sinner in the prospect of death : a principle which 
natural religion could never teach, but without which 
neither the proof of future rewards could ever be 
established, nor the hope of them warrantably enter- 
tained. 

I will conclude with the words of a learned and 
pious divine, which apply with equal propriety to 
the subject of this and of the foregoing chapter. 
" Whensoever we find God," says Dr. Stanhope, 
*^ promising pardon, and admitting men to recon- 
*' ciliation and friendship with him, there is involved 
" a virtual promise of future happiness and immor- 
*' tality. Consequently, every prediction of a Re- 
'^ deemer and recovery from sin, every sacrifice in- 
" stituted and offered from the beginning of the 
" world, whereby the offerer was represented as at 
" peace with God, his guilt transferred upon the 
" beast;, and a vicarious punishment accepted for his 
" own ; each of these, I say, was a shadow and 
" pledge of a future happiness. And in this respect, 
*' the assurances of life and immortality are of a 
'* date with our first parents' fall "." 

♦* Divine Nature." Rambler, No. 110. *' Sacrifice teaches, that 
** though life be the forfeit of sin, yet God will, in mercy, accept 
•* another life in lieu of the offender's." Rev. exam, with Candour. 
^ Boyle's Lectures, vol. i. p. 701. 



Scriptural testimonies, fk^c. 247 

CHAPTER VI. 

SCRIPTURAL AUTHORITIES IN SUPPORT OF THE DOCTRINE 
WHICH HAS BEEN MAINTAINED IN THE FOREGOING 
CHAPTERS. 

1 HE foregoing parts of this dissertation have not 
been wanting, we trust, in that submission to the 
authority of Scripture which ought to predominate 
in every religious inquiry. It seems however desir- 
able, that a more particular attention should be be- 
stowed on certain portions of the sacred writings, 
the language of which discovers a remarkable concur- 
rence and harmony with that general view of the 
subject, the justice of which we are desirous to main- 
tain. 

The general tenor of Scripture, in the views of a 
future life which are afforded in both the Old and 
New Testaments, seems designed to exhibit the 
prospects of happiness in that state, as subsisting 
only in connexion with, and in dependence upon, 
the sacrifice of Christ. That sacrifice is therein set 
forth to us, as the only meritorious cause of man's 
justification, and therefore, by necessary consequence, 
the indispensable foundation of his hopes respecting 
a future life. The doctrine of life and immortality 
is peculiarly and exclusively the doctrine of the cross 
of Christ. It is a stream issuing from the wounds of 
the Redeemer. 

Thus, it is designated by St. Paul as " the promise 
" of life which is in Christ Jesus p :" a form of words 
which manifestly indicates, that the doctrine thus 
described was peculiar to the Christian plan of re- 

V 2 Tim. i. 1. 
R 4 



248 Scriptural testimonies 

demption, and one by which it was essentially distin- 
guished from every other religious dispensation. 

" Is the Law then against the promises of God ? 
" God forbid : for if there had been a law given 
" which could have given life, verily righteousness 
" should have been by the Law ^." The Law con- 
tained in itself no provision^ by virtue of which 
righteousness could be imputed to man : in other 
words, it provided no means of human justification. 
This deficiency arose from two causes. First, it im- 
posed obligations which the fallen nature of man 
had never been able to fulfil : secondly, it provided 
no means intrinsically available towards expiating 
transgression; since it is impossible that the blood of 
bulls and of goats, which forms the matter of the 
Levitical sacrifices, can take away sin. The Law 
then, according to the text, was characterized by two 
deficiencies, both of which are supplied in that more 
perfect dispensation which hath succeeded in its 
place. It provided neither for the justification, nor 
the eternal happiness, of those who were subject to 
it. If there had been a law which could have given 
life, then justification might have heen by the Law. 
How plainly are we directed, in this reasoning, to 
seek for that justification in the Gospel, which the 
Law could not afford. This very circumstance of de- 
fect in the latter dispensation, is urged, as the most 
cogent and irresistible motive for embracing the 
former. By the same form of reasoning we are au- 
thorized to conclude, that as justification cannot be 
by the Law, therefore the Law cannot give life. We 

'I Gal.iii. 21. 



adduced and examined. 249 

see then, how closely united with each other are 
these two deficiencies of the Law. The Law cannot 
give eternal life, because it cannot give justification 
to man : for justification must necessarily in order of 
time be precedent to immortal happiness. Justifica- 
tion is effected, only through the merits of Christ : 
hence arises the necessity of a Redeemer. Justifica- 
tion is obtained individually, by that act of the mind, 
whereby a believer, among other necessary principles 
of faith, embraces the merits of Christ as the ground 
of his hope : hence arises the necessity of believing 
the Gospel. 

We therefore conclude, that the Law did not pro- 
mise, because it could not give, eternal life. For if 
the Law could not give eternal life, it is plain, that a 
promise of that blessing could never have been intro- 
duced into it as its appropriate sanction. If however 
that promise had, in express terms, been in any way 
introduced into the Law, how could it have been kept 
separate and distinct, in the contemplation of the 
Israelite, from the sanction itself? We may ask 
again, if the Law had disclosed such a promise, where 
would have been the inducement to embrace the Gos- 
pel? Where would have been those striking marks 
of excellence and superiority, by which the latter is 
now so conspicuously distinguished in its contrast 
with the earlier dispensation ? How would it have 
been possible, on this supposition, to have established 
the doctrine of justification on that footing on which 
the apostle has now placed it? Would it not in 
that case have obviously occurred to every Jew and 
judaizing Christian, to have replied to the above 
cited argument of St. Paid, which is now unanswer- 



250 Scriptural testimonies 

able : ** But the Law can give life, since it plainly 
** promises it : therefore, justification is by the Law." 

The process of reasoning on this subject will be 
shortened, if we adopt the interpretation of the 
learned and venerable Bishop Bull: who observes 
with reference to this text, that " the law is said to 
" give, that which it promises^ ^ Agreeably to this 
view (which indeed seems perfectly natural and un- 
objectionable) the reasoning of the Apostle will stand 
thus: If there had heen a law given which could 
have promised eternal life, then justification would 
have heen hy the Law, 

" Be it known unto you therefore, men and 
" brethren, that through this man is preached unto 
" you the forgiveness of sins : and by him all that 
" believe are justified from all things from which ye 
" could not be justified by the law of Moses ^" These 
words contain a full and satisfactory explanation of 
the reasons, why the promise of immortality appears 
in the Gospel, but is excluded from the Law. The 
Gospel provides for the forgiveness of sin, and the 
justification of sinful men. The Law provided for 
neither. Both however are, by the honour of God's 
attributes, indispensably necessary in order to eternal 

** "" Dicitur lex id dare vel facere quod promittit. Sensus ergo 
** est : Si lex habuisset promissa vitae, nempe seternae, tunc etiam 
" homines per legem, veram ac spiritualem justjtiam, vel veram 
*' ac perfectam justificationem, hoc est, cum vitae aeternae dona- 
" tione conjunctam, assequi potuissent. Atlonge aliter se res lia- 
" bet: Lex promissa tantum continet ad banc vitam spectantia ; 
*' adeoque neque ad veram pietatem homines adducere, nee per- 
*' fecta justificatione ipsos donare, potis est.'' BuUi Harmonia 
Apostolica, Diss, Post. cap. x. §. 6. 

" A(?t5i xiil. 3«, 39. 



adduced and examined, 251 

life. How then could the Law^ deficient as it was in 
these previous requisites, afford a promise of eternal 
life ? It is said of Christ, as a mark of superiority to 
the Levitical priests, that '^ he hath obtained a more 
*^ excellent ministry, by how much also he is the me- 
" diator of a better covenant, which was established 
'' upon better promises^'' Whether among these bet- 
ter promises that of eternal life be included, can hard- 
ly, I should think, to any reflecting mind admit of 
a doubt : for with regard to the blessings of this life, 
the promises of the Law could not be surpassed. 
We are to observe then that this promise, the pro- 
mise of eternal life, is by the apostle essentially con- 
nected with the ministry and priesthood of Christ. 
The text indeed speaks of more promises than one 
as peculiar to the Christian, in contradistinction 
from the Mosaic covenant : and we shall hereafter 
have occasion to treat of the others, and to shew 
that they, like the promise of eternal life, could not 
consistently have been annexed to any earlier reve- 
lation. The apostle proceeds : " For if that first 
" covenant had been faultless, then should no place 
" have been sought for the second^." What is this 
but to say, that if the promises of the Gospel had 
been anticipated in the Law, the Gospel itself would 
have been unnecessary ? Certainly it would : and so 
it must reasonably have been esteemed by all who 
lived under the Law. 

'* The record that God gave of his Son is this : 

" that God hath given to us eternal life, and this 

" life is in his Son^.'' How strange must this have 

appeared, if before the Lamb of God was manifested, 

t Heb. viii. 6. " lb. ver. 7. ^ 1 John v. 1 1. 



252 Scriptural testimonies 

the promise of eternal life had been conveyed by 
the ministry of Moses, or annexed to the priesthood 
of Aaron and his sons. 

In the following words, the gift of eternal life is 
inseparably connected, not only with the person, but 
also with the sacrifice, of Christ. " In this was ma- 
" nifested the love of God towards us, because that 
" God sent his only begotten Son into the world, 
" that we might live through him. Herein is love, 
" not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and 
" se?it his Son to he the propitiation for our sinsy.'' 
The love of God in giving eternal life to us, is the 
same with the love of God in appointing his Son to 
expiate our sins. Our benefit is the effect of that 
sacrifice : for the gift of eternal life, and the sacrifice 
of Christ, are spoken of as the same act on the part 
of God. This indeed is the uniform tenor of Scrip- 
ture. Yet it is surely difficult to conceive, how such 
language could have been in any degree credible, if 
the promise of eternal life had been clearly unfolded 
in those ages, to which the sacrifice of the Son of 
God was not communicated. 

That every prophecy of the Old Testament which 
was understood to relate to the Messiah, would pro- 
perly be viewed as containing in itself an implied 
promise of a future and immortal life, is a propo- 
sition of which we have already endeavoured to 
evince the truth. There appears indeed, through- 
out the whole progress of revelation, a studied de- 
sign to exhibit the person of the Messiah and the 

y I John iv. 9, 10. 



adduced and examined. 2!5S 

doctrine of a future state, as subsisting together in 
close and inseparable union. Thus, while the Mes- 
siah continues veiled under the types and obscure 
prophecies of the law, the doctrine of immortality is 
veiled also. The doctrine is discovered and made 
known in nearly the same degrees, from time to time, 
that the Messiah is. The proofs of the doctrine are 
the same with the testimonies to the Messiah. And 
when, lastly, the veil of mystery is removed from 
the Messiah, it is also removed from the doctrine of 
a future state. The Son of God is manifested in 
the flesh, and life and immortality are brought to 
light by the Gospel. 

Conformable to this view are those remarkable 
words of our Saviour : " Search the Scriptures ; for 
" in them ye think ye have eternal life : and they 
" are they which testify of me^T Here the doc- 
trine of a future state, as far as it may be gathered 
from the scriptures of the Old Testament, is plainly 
identified by our Lord, with the testimony which 
those scriptures bear to himself. It will not be 
amiss to annex in this place the explanation of these 
words, which is given, in a paraphrase, by the learned 
prelate whom I have just quoted. '' You attribute 
" to the law of Moses more than belongs to it. You 
" think that eternal life is promised to those who 
" fulfil the precepts of the Law, and that the doc- 
" trine of life is expressly contained in those books. 
" If however you will not only read, but attentively 
** weigh and consider, (for such is the force of the 
" term in the original language %) you will readily 

^ John V. 39. * E^ei^vare. 



254 Scriptural testimonies 

" acknowledge, that those writings point at me, and 
" di?^ect you to me as the fountain and giver of 
*^ eternal life, and to that spiritual righteousness 
" which I teach, as the only way of attaining it^." 
The justice of this exposition will appear more 
forcibly from considering the words which imme- 
diately follow in the sacred text : " And ye will not 
" come to me, that ye might have life^'' Here the 
connexion of the two subjects is again insisted 
upon. 

The argument we are now maintaining may per- 
haps appear more convincing, after an attentive ob- 
servation, framed on a collective view, of the various 
passages in the Old Testament which relate to the 
two subjects, namely, a Messiah and a future life. 
From such observation it will appear, if I mistake 
not, that the notices afforded to successive ages of 
the church respecting these two most important sub- 
jects, have kept pace with each other : that is to say, 
that they have been nearly parallel in order of time, 
and that the progressive announcements of them 
both respectively, have been marked by degrees of 
clearness, progressively and equally increasing. 

Thus, the earliest intimation of a Redeemer is 
shrouded in darkness and mystery. " I will put 
" enmity between thee and the woman, and between 
" thy seed and her seed : it shall bruise thy head, 
" and thou shalt bruise his heel^." At the same 
time, the doctrine of a future life is enveloped in 
that intimation, and partakes of all the mystery of 
the intimation itself The same holds good as to 

^ Bull's Harm. Apos. Diss. Post. X. §. 17. 

^ John V. 40. '' (icii. iii, 15. 



adduced and examined, 255 

the various successive prophecies of the Messiah. 
We have already proved, that in these prophecies 
the doctrine of a future life is always implicitly con- 
tained, and that the tvi^o subjects are treated as if 
they were one and the same. This must be borne in 
mind in order to obviate repetition : and the gene- 
ral conclusion arising from it will be further strength- 
ened, if it shall appear, that wherever any separate 
intimations are afforded, relating exclusively to the 
latter subject, the measure of discovery contained in 
them is proportioned to the measures of knowledge 
which had been communicated to the same ages 
respecting the plan of our redemption. 

Carrying on our view then through a long tract 
of those early ages, during which the communica- 
tions afforded on both these subjects are compara- 
tively scanty and obscure, and conveyed chiefly in 
the passages to which we have already referred^, and 
in which they are found united together as one sub- 
ject : we come at length to the era of David. Here, 
in the Psalms which were composed by him, both the 
doctrine of eternal life and the notices respecting 
a future Redeemer, appear to open by equal grada- 
tions into a developement, which surpasses all fore- 
going declarations in clearness and particularity of 
detail. Herein are contained, not only a promise of 
the Messiah, but an accurate description of him, as 
a man of suffering and humiliation, and of that death 
by which he was to expiate the sins of the world. 
These passages are so well known, as to supersede 
the necessity of citation. Contemporaneous with 

<= Chap. iv. §.3. 



256 Scriptural testimonies 

these are certain passages of the same book, in which 
the doctrine of everlasting life seems to be declared 
more distinctly than it had been in any of the ear- 
lier scriptures. To this effect is the following. The 
royal Psalmist prays to God for deliverance from 
the wicked, whom he describes as " the men of the 
" world, who have their portion in this life ;" he 
further depicts them as living in the enjoyment of 
the favours of heaven, blessed with children, and 
bequeathing to them their substance after death. 
With regard to these characters, and, as it were, 
in contrast with them, he expresses his own hope 
and confidence thus : " As for me, I will behold 
" thy face in righteousness : / shall he satisfied 
" when I awake with thy likeness^'' A variety 
of other passages to the same effect are commonly 
alleged from this book. There are two, of which 
the language is strikingly applicable, by reason of 
their clearness, to this subject : but I do not lay 
any stress on them, because the dates of their com- 
position and the authors are unknown. They are 
as follows : " God will redeem my soul from the 
" power of the grave, for he shall receive me ^ :" 
and, " Thou shalt guide me with thy counsel, and 
" afterward receive me to glory ^." But with re- 
gard to the general purpose of these citations, the 
writings of Solomon being subsequent to the pro- 
phetic declarations respecting the Messiah which are 
contained in the Psalms of David, and but little dis- 
tant from them in the order of time, are an authority 
equally available with those Psalms themselves. In 

* Psalm xvii. 13, M, 15. ^ Ib.xlix. 15. '' lb. Ixxiii. 24. 



adduced and examined. 257 

the Book of Proverbs then, we are explicitly told, 
that " the righteous hath hope in his death \" And 
in the book of Ecclesiastes, the nature of death is 
thus described : " The dust shall return to the earth 
" as it was : and the spirit shall return unto God 
" who gave it ^." Let it not be said, that these lat- 
ter words denote only the resumption of animal life 
by the Author and Giver of it. Such a construc- 
tion is at variance with the general tenor and pre- 
vailing doctrines of the book : in which it is de- 
clared that God shall hereafter " bring every work 
" into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it 
" be good or whether it be evil^ ;" while the judg- 
ment contemplated by the royal preacher is plainly 
fixed beyond the boundaries of a life^ in which he 
acknowledges the unequal and promiscuous dispen- 
sations of Providence '^\ 

Still however there do not occur in the sacred 
writings of this age, any notices, respecting either 
the promised Redeemer or a future life, which are 
so plain and declaratory as those which we meet 
with in the next stage of our progress : the predic- 
tions of the Messiah contained in the Psalms being 
chiefly of such a character, that their meaning is ex- 
plained, and their application determined, by the 
fulfilment of the events which they describe. But 
the next great epoch of discovery on both these sub- 
jects presents itself in the time of Isaiah. 

Before however we introduce our quotations from 
Isaiah, it will be important to notice a passage in 
the writings of a prophet who was contemporary 

^ Proverbs xiv. 32. ^ Eccles. xii. 7. ^ lb. xii. 14. 

'^ lb. vHi. 14. ix. 1,2,3. 

S 



258 Scriptu7^al testimonies 

with him. " O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself ; 

" but in me is thy help. 1 will ransom them 

" from the power of the grave ; I will redeem them 
" from death : O death, I will be thy plagues ; O 
" grave, I will be thy destruction ^." Here the doc- 
trine of eternal life and that of redemption appear 
to be inseparably connected ; and nothing can more 
strikingly illustrate the union which^ according to 
the Divine counsels, subsists between them. 

Isaiah, as I have formerly had occasion to ob- 
serve, delivered the earliest of those prophecies re- 
specting a suffering and dying Redeemer, which 
might have been distinctly understood before the 
time of its accomplishment : and in this prophecy, 
the passion and humiliation of our Lord are clearly 
stated to have been designed, as a sacrifice of atone- 
ment and expiation for the sins of mankind. Here 
then, for the first time, is the mysterious mode of our 
redemption discovered, though in a distant prospect, 
to mortal eyes : and here also, in the writings of the 
same prophet, do we meet with declarations respect- 
ing a future state, framed with such perspicuity and 
force of language as Scripture had never before em- 
ployed upon that subject. The following are in- 
stances : " He will swallow up death in victory o." 
" Thy dead men shall live, together with my dead 
" body shall they arise. Awake and sing, ye that 
" dwell in dust : for thy dew is as the dew of herbs, 
" and the earth shall cast out the dead p." '' The 
" righteous perisheth, and no man layeth it to 
" heart : and merciful men are taken away, none 

" Hosea xiii. 9, 14. " Isaiah xxv. 8. i" lb. xxvi. 19. 



adduced and examined, 259 

" considering that the righteous is taken away from 
" the evil to come. He shall enter into peace : they 
" shall rest in their beds, each one walking in his 
" uprightness^." 

That something more than a mere cessation from 
trouble is denoted by the terms last quoted, will ap- 
pear a reasonable construction of them, if we refer 
to that remarkable passage in the Revelation, where 
language of a similar complexion is employed to 
signify a state of immortality and positive happi- 
ness. '^ I heard a voice from heaven, saying unto 
" me. Write, Blessed are the dead which die in the 
" Lord from henceforth : yea, saith the Spirit, that 
" they may rest from their labours ; and their works 
" do follow them^" 

It is generally admitted, that the intimations of a 
future state are not unfrequent in the writings of 
the later prophets, and that they are therein con- 
veyed in language comparatively explicit and decla- 
ratory. Now whatever clearness of discovery may 
be observed in their prophecies with relation to this 
subject, we are to observe, that these prophecies are 
subsequent in point of time to the clear declarations 
of Isaiah respecting the atonement of a suffering Re- 
deemer. This should be duly considered, as a cir- 
cumstance corroborative of the general principles 
we maintain. 

There is however one passage in the prophet 
Daniel, which ought not to be passed over Avithout 
particular remark. Its application to a future state 
and a future retribution is plain and incontrover- 
tible. '' Many of them that sleep in the dust of 

fi Isaiah Ivii. 1,2. r Rev. xiv. 13. 

S 2! 



260 Scriptural testimonies 

" the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, 
" and some to shame and everlasting contempt^." 
These words are found in the writings of the same 
prophet, who has elsewhere declared in the plain- 
est terms, that " Messiah shall be cut off, but not 
'' for himself ^" Thus closely united, in the views 
which Divine wisdom has afforded us, are the doc- 
trines of atonement and eternal life ! Further we 
need not go ; unless we would carry on our view to 
the Lamb of God bleeding on the cross. Here you 
behold the Redeemer himself, in the agonies of that 
very sacrifice by which our peace was made, judi- 
cially awarding for the first time the sentence of 
eternal life : " Verily, I say unto thee, To-day shalt 
" thou be with me in paradise^\" 

We will now advert to a portion of the sacred 
writings, which preeminently calls for our most at- 
tentive consideration ; because it relates to us the 
manner in which our blessed Lord, after confuting 
the objection of the Sadducees to the doctrine of the 
resurrection, retorted upon his adversaries the proof 
of that doctrine from the authority of the Penta- 
teuch. " Jesus answered and said unto them, Ye do 
" err, not knowing the scriptures, nor the power of 

^' God. But as touching the resurrection of 

" the dead, have ye not read that which was spoken 
" unto you by God, saying, I am the God of Abra- 
" ham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Ja- 
" cob ? God is not the God of the dead, but of the 
" living^." 

•^ Dan. xii. 2. ^ lb. ix. 26. ^' Luke xxiii. 43. 

^ Matt. xxii. 2i), 31,32. 



adduced and examined. 2i6l 

" The argument thus advanced," says the learned 
Pococke, •' is wholly irrefragable and unanswerable. 
" You cannot evade the force of it, unless you will 
" say, that the promises which God made to the pa- 
" triarchs were never fulfilled, and that the law of 
" Moses is false from beginning to end. For, why 
" should God be designated the God of Abraham, 
" Isaac, and Jacob, more than of other men, unless 
" it be that he conferred upon them greater and 
" more numerous blessings than upon others ? But 
'* these distinctions of favour were never experienced 
" by them during the present life. Many, far less 
" distinguished than they were by fidelity to God, 
" have passed through this life in greater happiness 
" and affluence. You must therefore admit, that 
" the season appointed for their remuneration was 
" after the expiration of this life, and that they 
** themselves must have survived the death of the 
" body, or else that they will hereafter revive, in 
" order that they may receive their reward : this 
" you must admit, unless you will suppose, what 
" none but a downright atheist would say, that these 
" promises were false and delusive on the part of 
" God. And further : when God thus addresses 
" Moses after so many ages had elapsed since the 
" death and burial of these patriarchs, he declares 
" that he is, not that he had been, their God. 
'' Hence we learn the unchangeableness of God, and 
" we also learn, that the patriarchs had not ceased 
" to exist at the hour of death : since God is not the 
" God of the dead, who cannot be sensible of his be- 
" nefits, but of the living. They therefore live unto 

s 3 



26^ Scriptural testimonies 

" God, and not they only, but all men : even now 
" their souls remain, and their bodies will hereafter 
*' be restored to lifey." As an evidence that these 
patriarchs died in the hope of a future reward, this 
writer proceeds to adduce the following passage 
from the Epistle to the Hebrews ; which is also par- 
ticularly entitled to our attention, by reason of the 
illustration it affords of the phrase, which furnishes 
the ground of our Lord's reasoning. " These all 
" died in faith, not having received the promises, 
" but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded 
" of them, and embraced them, and confessed that 
" they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. 
" For they that say such things make it manifest '''- 
" that they seek a country. And truly, if they had 
" been mindful of that country, from whence they 
** came out, they might have had opportunity to 
" have returned. But now they desire a better 
" country, that is, an heavenly : wherefore God is 
" not ashamed to be called the IE god : for he hath 
" prepared for them a city ^" 

When God declares himself emphatically to be a 
God to Abraham^, the expression must necessarily 
be understood to denote peculiar favour and kind- 
ness, and to imply the promise of peculiar benefits to 
him, in distinction from other men : for in any other 
sense of the term, God is equally a God to all men. 
It must be understood agreeably to that other form 

y Notae Misc. in Portani Mosis, pp. J 02, 3. 
^ E/xf/>aj/i^ot;o-/j/. I have altered the version for the sake of ob- 
viating the ambiguity of the Enghsh phrase, declare plainly. 
MIeb. xi. 13—16. "Gen.xvii.7. 



adduced and examined. 263 

of words in which God declares himself to be Abra- 
ham's " exceeding great reward*^." In what then 
was this favour displayed ? in what did these bene- 
fits consist ? and when was this reward conferred ? 
If we look to the history of his life, we find, that 
he forsook his native land and his kindred at the 
call of God ; that he went out, not knowing whither 
he went ; that he sojourned in the land of promise, 
as in a strange country ; that he dwelt in tents to- 
gether with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs of the same 
promise with himself; that his life was a life of 
faith, more animated by the hope, than comforted by 
the experience, of good. These things are far re- 
mote from the common notions of worldly happi- 
ness, and indeed inconsistent with them. It must 
therefore be evident, that when God revealed him- 
self to Moses as the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and 
of Jacob, the words must have implied, that those 
patriarchs were then in existence, and in a capacity 
of enjoying that happiness which had been promised 
to them, but which, according to the proper import 
of the promise itself, they had never experienced 
while in the body. 

Having offered these remarks for the purpose of 
illustrating the scope and cogency of our Saviour's 
argument, it is now necessary, that I should ad- 
vert to the construction which has been put upon 
it by that great writer, with whose opinions the na- 
ture of my subject has sometimes necessarily brought 
me into collision. 

" From Jesus's argument it appears," says War- 
c Gen. XV. 1. 
S 4 



264 Scriptural testimonies 

burton, " that the separate existence of the soul 
" might be fairly inferred from the writings of Mo- 
" ses ^r At another time it was admitted that the 
early Jews believed the survival of the soul. " It 
" will be asked then," observes the same writer, 
" What were the real sentiments of these early Jews 
" concerning the soul? Though the question be a 
" little out of time, yet as the answer is short, I shall 
" give it here. They were doubtless the same with 
" those of the rest of mankind, who have thought 
" upon the matter; that it survived the body^." 
After this admission, what shall we think of the fol- 
lowing ? '• But having," he continues, " from Moses's 
" silence, and the establishment of another sanction, 
" no expectation of future rewards and punishments, 
" they simply concluded that it returned to him 
** who gave it K But^ as to any interesting specu- 
" lations concerning its state of survivorship^ it is 
*' 2:>lain they had none /" What ! They believed the 
immortality of the soul : they believed the doctrine, 
but regarded it with total apathy : a doctrine which 
has always been viewed by other men with su- 
preme interest and trembling anxiety. It was in 
their minds an inert and quiescent principle, void of 
all influence on their conduct and their happiness : 



'' Div. Leg. b. vi. §. 4.. vol. ,5. p. 419. Yet he contends that 
it was never intended that they should infer it ! For this opinion 
and the reason of it, see book vi. note [ii.] 

c Yet this belief is, in another place, said to have been en- 
tertained only as a league notion-, to have been conjined to few ; 
and those few only such as ihoui^ld any thing about the matter, 
Book vi. §.3. vol. 5. p. 388. 

^ Ecclcs. xii. 7. 



adduced and examined. 265 

it stimulated no virtue, it restrained no wickedness, 
it yielded no consolation, it was unattended with 
hope or fear, joy or grief. 

Was this then the sentiment entertained respect- 
ing the soul among a nation, who, in their religious 
advantages, far surpassed all the rest of mankind ? 
To ask an admission of this is surely making a very 
large demand on our credulity. The Epicureans 
professed the belief of a God : but their belief, whe- 
ther philosophically or practically considered, was 
wholly useless. So according to this writer, the an- 
cient Israelites believed the immortality of the soul, 
and their belief was equally useless ; though it can- 
not be denied that this doctrine is, considered in it- 
self and its effects, of the greatest necessity and im- 
portance towards the government and the happiness 
of mankind. Nature, we are told, does nothing in 
vain. That is to say, God, as the creator and go- 
vernor of the natural world, does nothing in vain. 
This is a generally received principle : it is attested 
by our scientific researches, and forms a necessary 
consequence of our belief in the Divine attributes. 
Does not a just contemplation of those attributes 
dictate the same principle in regard to God's moral 
government of the world ? If this be the case, how 
can the opinion of this writer be reconciled to it. 

As no writer however ought to be condemned 
before he has fully explained himself, justice re- 
quires that we should pursue the train of remark 
a little further. After stating that the early Jews 
entertained no interesting speculations respecting 
the soul in its state of survivorship, he proceeds 
thus : " Indeed, how should they have any ? when 



266 Scriptural testimonies 

" PERSONALITY did not enter into the idea of this 
" sti?wivorship, that being only annexed to the re- 
" ivards and punishments of a future state. Hence 
" it was that those ancient philosophers (almost all 
" the theistical philosophers of Greece) who consi- 
" dered the soul as a substance distinct from the 
" body, and not a mere quality of it, (for they were 
" not such idiots as to conceive, that thought could 
" result from any combinations of matter and mo- 
" tion,) those philosophers, I say, who considered the 
" soul as a substance, and yet disbelieved a future 
'' state of rewards and punishments, denied it all fu- 
" ture personality, and held the refusion into the 
" TO €v, or the soul of the worlds. And just such 
" INTERESTING SPECULATIONS Concerning it had 
" the few philosophic Jews of the most early times, 
" as appears from the book of Ecclesiastes, which 
" speaks their sentiments. fVho hioweth (says 
" this author) the spirit of man that goeth upward, 
" and the spirit of the heast that goeth downward 
*« to the earth^^ And again, ' Then shall the dust 
** return to the earth as it was, and the spirit 

" SHALL return UNTO GOD WHO GAVE IT \' 

" Yet this writer, perfectly conformable to what I 

" have delivered, says, at the same time : ' But the 

" dead know not any thing, neither have they any 

'* MORE A reward ; for the memory of them is 

'' forgotten^' :^'' 

Such reasoning is best answered by an application 

R " See Div. Leg. b. iii.'' 

•' " Ch. iii. 21. Vicl Clcr. et Drus, in loc." 

* *' Ch. xii. 7. Vid Cler. in loc." ^ " Chap. ix. ver. 5." 

' Div. Leg. b. v. §. 6. vol. v. p. 196. 



adduced and examined. 267 

of the statements and principles furnished by the 
great writer himself. The doctiine which teaches 
that the human soul is consubstantial with the essence 
of the Deity ; that it is taken out of that essence at 
the commencement, and absorbed into it at the ter- 
mination, of the bodily life ; and that it thus loses 
all distinct personality and consciousness at death : 
this doctrine is here stated to have been that, which 
was entertained by the early Israelites respecting 
the separate existence of the soul. One individual 
Jew °^ within the last two centuries confessedly main- 
tained the tenets thus described : but it would not 
be easy to advance an opinion more improbable, than 
that of supposing, that any single person of that 
nation had, at any earlier period, embraced so " re- 
" fined, remote, far-fetched, and impious a notion," 
as Warburton himself justly describes it. But let 
us take his own account of its origin and the time 
of its first introduction : from which it appears, that 
the notion itself was " purely Grecian °;" that it was 
" a Greek invention o;" that the first inventors of it 
were Pherecydes and Thales ; and that it was ge- 
nerated by the peculiar genius of the Greek philo- 
sophy p. It remains then to be explained, how the 
Israelites, in the age of Solomon, should gather the 
knowledge of a philosophical system about four hun- 
dred years before it was first introduced, fi'om a na- 
tion with whom they had no intercourse or commu- 
nication. 

But the argument ad hominem may perhaps be 

"^ Spinoza. " Div. Leg. b. iii. §. 4. vol. iii. p. 1/4. 

° Ibid. p. 179. i' See the same work, pp. 174 — 

184. 



2!68 Scriptural testimonies 

considered as better adapted to the purpose of alter- 
cation than of truth ; as more suited to the contra- 
diction of an opponent than the confutation of his 
opinions. It will therefore be proper to add, that 
the view which Warburton has here taken of the 
subject can on no grounds whatever be maintained. 
The language of Solomon above cited is plainly 
inconsistent with the opinions of those who held the 
refusion of the soul into the Divine essence. For 
here " the spirit of man which goeth upwards," is 
distinguished in the strongest manner from " the 
" spirit of the beast that goeth down to the earth." 
But the doctrine of the refusion (which we have de- 
scribed above, and which we have more fully ex- 
plained in a former part of this work^i) contemplated 
the spirits of men and of beasts as having, in this 
respect, the same nature and the same destiny : 
both, when life departed from the body, were, ac- 
cording to this system, reunited to the parent sub- 
stance out of v/hich they were originally taken. 
This will appear on examining the philosophical 
principle ^' from which that abominable doctrine was 
deduced, and according to which, the distinction of 
the human and the brutal soul, as to the point in 
question, would have been inadmissible. It will also 
appear indisputably from various passages in ancient 
writers, where the doctrine of the refusion is de- 
scribed. The following from Virgil may serve as 
an example : 

" His quidam signis, atque hacc cxcmpla secuti, 
" Esse apibus partem divina? mentis, ct haustus 

•1 Page 141. ^ See the quotation from Servius in the 

ioUovving note. 



adduced and examined. 269 

" iEthereos dixere : Deum namque ire per omnes 
" Terrasque tractusque maris, coelumque profundum. 
" Hinc pecudes, armenta, vivos, genus omnejcrarum, 
" Quemque sibi tenues nascentem arcessere vitas. 
'* Scilicet hue reddi deinde, ac resoluta referri 
" Omnia, nee morti esse locum ^Z"' 

Among other topics of argument employed by 
Warburton for the proof of his position, that there 
was no popular expectation of a future state among 
the early Israelites ; he has alleged the positive de- 
clarations of the sacred writers. This species of 
evidence most incontestibly demands our attention : 
since, having maintained the contrary proposition, 
we are now desirous of evincing its conformity with 
Scripture. 

We do not however feel ourselves called upon to enter 
into a minute examination of every citation which 
has been made for this purpose. Our reason is the 

* Georg. iv, 219. '* His quidam signis atque hcec exempla secuti.'] 
" Locum himc plenius est executus in sexto [^n. libro,] quern 
" hoc loco breviter colligit, ut probet etiam apes partem habere 
" divinitatis. Namque omnia animalia ex quatuor elementis et di- 
" vino spiritu constare manifestum est. Trahunt enim a terra car- 
*' nem, ah aqua huniorem, ah aere anhelitum, ah igne fervorem : a 
*' divino spiritu ingenium. Quod quia est in apibus sicut etiam 
" in hominibus (namque metuunt, cupiunt, dolent, gaudent : quae 
" probantur ex his quse faciunt : dimicant enim, colligunt flores, 
" provident pluvias) fateamur necesse est etiam apes partem ha- 
" here divinitatis. Ex divino spiritu sumunt omnia, cum nasci 
" coeperint, vitam : casterum corpus ex quatuor elementis est, ut 
" diximus. Scilicet hue reddi.'] Sine dubio etiam cuncta dissolvi 
'' et redire rursus in originem suam necesse est. Locum morti.] 
** Id est perditioni. Nihil est enim quod perire funditus possit, 
" cum sit TO Traf, id est omne, in quod redeunt universa resoluta." 
Servius in loco. 



270 Scri'ptural testimonies 

following. We appeal to certain undeniable principles 
of interpretation, which relate partly to the sacred 
language of Scripture, and partly, in a more ex- 
tensive way, to the nature of liuman language in 
general : in the legitimate application of these prin- 
ciples, combined with a regard, partly to the gene- 
ral tenor of Scripture, and partly to distinct portions 
of it, we contend, respecting such evidence taken in 
the gross, cannot in justice be applied to the point 
in relation to which it is adduced. In order to the 
proof of this proposition we will divide into two 
classes the passages referred to. 

I. Of these citations, some are adduced as speak- 
ing the direct and authoritative language of Scrip- 
ture to the effect of declaring, that there is no future 
state. It might be thought needless to protest against 
such reasoning : we cannot suppress our astonish- 
ment and regret, that any Christian divine can be so 
far carried away by an intemperate zeal for his opi- 
nions as to venture on the employment of it. That 
we are not at liberty " so to expound one place of 
" Scripture that it be repugnant to another," is the 
language of our church ^ We may add, that by all 
who receive the body of Scripture in the form in 
which we now receive it, as the word of God, and 
the revelation of God, it must be esteemed the lan- 
guage of common sense. If therefore such be the 
character of this sacred book, and if the doctrine of 
a future state be unquestionably contained in it ; 
and that, not in the way of indirect allusion and his- 
torical narrative, but in that of direct and authori- 

t Art. XX. 



adduced and examined. 271 

tative declaration : if this be the case, then it must 
necessarily follow, that no passage in that book 
which is so construed, as to convey, on the authority 
of Scripture, a contradiction of that doctrine, can be 
construed according to its true meaning. 

What then can we think of that system of reason- 
ing and interpretation, which gravely alleges the 
names of David and Solomon, as of persons directly 
asserting, that death is the final extinction of con- 
sciousness in man ? What shall we think of con- 
struing the words of the latter into a statement, and 
a sanction, of that pestilent dogma of the Greek 
philosophy, the refusion of the soul and consequent 
extinction of its personality ? On the strength of the 
principle to which we thus appeal, of which neither 
the general truth nor the present application can be 
disputed by any believer in revelation, we say, that 
whatever be the right construction of the passages 
thus adduced, that which has been proposed by 
Warburton is wrong : and if it be, the passages 
themselves must at once, without the necessity of 
ascertaining their right signification, be pronounced 
wholly unavailing in evidence of the point in proof 
of which they are quoted. 

To one of these passages I will, for the sake of 
example, more particularly advert. Solomon says, 
" The living know that they shall die : but the dead 
" know not any thing, neither have they any more a 
" reward; for the memory of them is forgotten^." 
This is the strongest of all the various citations 
which have been brought forward by Warburton for 

" Eccles. ix. 5. 



272 Scriptural testimonies 

the purpose we are considering. We have already 
said, that his construction of the words must be 
wrong, because it is contradictory to the general te- 
nor of scripture. We say again that it is wrong, 
because it is contradictory to the general tenor of 
the doctrine delivered by the same writer, and con- 
tained in the same book. " Let us hear," says the 
preacher, " the conclusion of the whole matter : 
" Fear God, and keep his commandments : for this 
" is the whole^ duty of man. For God shall bring 
" every w^ork into judgment, with every secret thing, 
" whether it be good, or whether it be evil^." Can 
it be disputed, that the motive of our obedience to 
the Di\ane law is here laid in the prospect of a Di- 
vine judgment and retribution ? Is not this the doc- 
trine of Solomon ? And is it not most plainly de- 
clared by the same writer, that this judgment and 
this retribution do not take effect in the present 
life ? Does he not, wdth regard to this present life, 
declare, that " there are just men, to whom it hap- 
*' peneth according to the work of the wicked, and 
*' wicked men, to whom it happeneth according to 
'• the work of the righteous y?" that " no man 
*• knoweth either love or hatred by all that is before 
" them r that all things come alike to all, and that 
'^ there is one event to the righteous and to the 
" wicked ^?" Is it not plain then, that the judgment 
which Solomon contemplated must have been the 
judgment of a future state, since he himself declares 
that no such judgment is to be seen or expected in 
this life ? 

^ Eccles. xii. 13, M. v Ibid. nii. 14. ' Ibid. \\. 1, 2. 



adduced and examined, 273 

On the strength of the foregoing considerations, 
we have a right to insist, that the words which 
we are now considering do not, as they are con- 
strued by Warburton, convey the meaning of Solo- 
mon. If this be admitted, nothing more can be 
required towards the disproof of the reasoning which 
has been constructed upon them : but it may be 
more satisfactory, if we state what we ourselves, in 
concurrence with various respectable commentators, 
conceive to be the proper design and purport of 
them. 

We consider then the words, grammatically con- 
strued, to convey the very meaning which Warbur- 
ton has ascribed to them : but we contend, that such 
meaning is not that of the royal preacher, but of a 
class of persons whom he strongly reprobates and 
condemns. We are to remember the characters of 
whom he had been speaking. He had described 
them after the following manner : " Their heart is 
" full of evil, and madness is in their heart while 
" they live^'." It seems moreover, that according 
to his view, the foUy and wickedness thus imputed 
to them was occasioned by the fact, that there *' is 
" one event to all, to the righteous and the wicked, 
" to the good and the sinner^'." Having thus stated 
the fact of a promiscuous dispensation, and the per- 
verse construction which bad men are accustomed 
to put on such an aspect of things ; he may be 
considered as expressing, in the words which imme- 
diately follow, the sentiments and the reasonings 
of such men. These following words are those 

«Eccl. ix.3. b Ver. 2, 3. 



274 Scriptural testimonies 

which Warburton has cited : and they may be re- 
garded as expressing, not what he terms " the cool 
" philosophy '^ " of Solomon, but the madness of the 
epicurean voluptuary. 

Whether a just account has now been given of the 
words in question, may be better determined after we 
have viewed them in their proper connexion with 
the foregoing and following context. I will there- 
fore extract so much of the sacred writer's discourse, 
as is necessary to illustrate the scope of what we 
conceive to be the argument which he is here pur- 
suing : introducing at the same time a few brief re- 
marks, for the purpose of illustrating the exposition 
which has been given of it. 

" For all this I considered in my heart even to 
'* declare all this, that the righteous, and the wise, 
" and their works, are in the hand of God ; ^ no man 
" knoweth either love or hatred by all that is before 
" them." 

Here Solomon may be understood to teach, that 
the appointed recompense of the righteous is, dur- 
ing the present state of things, a secret withholden 
from the observation of man ; and that the promis- 
cuous dispensations of Providence are the cause 
of its concealment from our view : the phrase, 
** in the hand of God," being fitly taken, according 
to the idiom of scripture, to denote both the present 
secrecy, and the future accomplishment, of that re- 
compense, and to intimate that, though now hidden 

^ Div. Leg. b. V. §. 5. p. 183. 

*• '^ In manu ; i. e. sub tiitela et custodla. In manu Dei sunt, i. e. 
*' onculta, nobis ignota. Cum vero cum homine aliquid commu- 
** nicet [Deus], turn dicitur aparirc maniini swum.'' Poli Synopsis. 



adduced and examined. 275 

in futurity, it is not for that reason the less certain. 
He proceeds to the further statement of this cause, 
and also describes the effect which it produces in 
giving encouragement to the evil dispositions of men. 

" All things come alike to all : there is one event 
" to the righteous, and to the wicked ; to the good 
" and to the clean, and to the unclean ; to him that 
" sacrificeth, and to him that sacrificeth not : as is 
" the good, so is the sinner ; and he that sweareth, 
'' as he that feareth an oath. This is an evil among 
" all things that are done under the sun, that there 
" is one event unto all : yea, also the heart of the 
" sons of men is full of evil, and madness is in their 
" heart while they live ^, and after that they go to 
" the dead." 

From this place to the end of the following cita- 
tion, he ought, we conceive, to be understood as 
speaking the sentiments, not of himself, but of those 
whose madness and folly he had just described. 

^ " For to him that is joined to all the living there 
" is hope : for a living dog is better than a dead lion. 
" For the living know that they shall die : but the 
" dead know not any thing, neither have they any 
" more a reward ; for the memory of them is forgot- 

^ " Indulgent insanis et brutis vanitatibus ; a recto hac occasione 
" sumpta discedunt, et proni in scelera feriintur, ob promiscuam om- 
" nium sortem.'" Poll Synopsis. 

^ " Loquitur ex persona Epicureorum." PoH Synopsis ad loc. 
" Si quis ea loca bene consideret, videbit Sapientem introducere 
*' Epicureum, vel istius farinae hominem loquentem, nullo alio fine 
** quam ut eum refutet et coarguat. — Certum est in locis istis non 
" loqui nisi homines impios et profanos : vel Solomonem in locis 
" istis non loqui, nisi ex opinione impiorum et male feriatorum." 
Menasseh ben Israel de Res. Mor. 1. i. c. 15. 

T 2 



276 Scriptural testimo?iies 

*' ten. Also their love, and their hatred, and their 
" envy, is now perished ; neither have they any 
" more a portion for ever in any thing that is done 
" under the sun. Go thy way, eat thy bread with 
" joy, and drink thy wine with a merry heart ; for 
" God now accepteth thy works. Let thy garments 
" be always white ; and let thy head lack no oint- 
" ment. Live joyfully with the wife whom thou 
" lovest all the days of the life of thy vanity, which 
" he hath given thee under th6 sun ; all the days of 
" thy vanity: for that is thy portion in this s life, and 
" in thy labour which thou takest under the sun. 
'* Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy 
" might ^'; for there is no work, nor device, nor 
" knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou 
"goest'." 

s The word this is not in the original text ; and the omission of 
it is more suitable to the character to whom we conceive that this 
sentiment belongs, namely, that of a person who disowns the be- 
lief of any other life than the present. 

'* *' Qusecunque tibi honestee hilaritatis occasio inciderit, eam 
*' dum vivis arripe. Nee labori nee sumptiii parce, ut voluptates 
'* vel commoda vitae consequaris. Quod prius per partes exse- 
"^ quutus est, jam universum enunciat : q. d. Longum esset omnia 
*' persequi quibus ad jucundissimarn vitam iter, musicam, cupi- 
** dias, &c. quae omnia hortor te insectari." Poll Syn. 

" ^ Non est in sepulcro operis quidquam. Nihil ibi est quod vel 
" agas, vel patiaris." Idem. " Hasc est Epicureorum sententia, et 
" hsec [scil. quae dicuntur versibus pr{3ecedentibus] sunt ista opera 
•' ad quae inducit homines ista opinio." Menasseh ben Israel de 
Res. Mort. 1. i. c. 15. The exposition thus given of this last cited 
verse seems most agreeable to the purport of the discourse : 
though it cannot be denied that it is commonly supposed to carry 
a very dilferent meaning, being generally understood to inculcate 
the prompt and zealous fulfilment of our duties. It is not indeed 



adduced and examined. 277 

Few figures of speech are more common than the 
expression of another person's sentiments without 
the introductory form of quotation. We have, in the 
present instance, only to suppose that omission sup- 
plied^ : the language here employed will then con- 
vey the natural sentiments of a character, very dif- 
ferent from that of a moral teacher like Solomon, 
who inculcates, as the great springs of human con- 
duct, the fear of God and the prospect of a future 
judgment. We find in the writings of St. Paul a sen- 
timent, equally inconsistent with the character of the 
writer: it is indeed the very same sentiment with that 
which we have been considering, and introduced in 
a manner equally abrupt, without any intimation of 
a change in the speaker : " Let us eat and drink, 

the only form of words which, according to the difference of its 
interpretation, may supply a fit motto for a sinner or a saint : 
as may be seen from the following. 

Dum vivimus vivamus. 
'* Live while you live," the epicure would say, 
" And seize the pleasures of the present day." 
" Live while you live," the sacred preacher cries, 
*' And give to God each moment as it flies." 
Lord, in my view let both united be : 
I live in pleasure when I live to thee ! Doddridge^ 

^ A supposition, we may add, to which we must on many oc- 
casions necessarily resort, in order to the right understanding of 
this book of Ecclesiastes : since, according to the just observation 
of Menasseh ben Israel, it abounds with passages which are at first 
sight plainly contradictory to each other. That learned Jew has 
the following observation respecting these apparent contradictions. 
*' Cum hoc non sit hominis mediocri tantum sapientia praediti, 
*' sibi ipse tarn aperte et toties contradicere, quis hoc de illo 
'^ suspicetur, quern Deus mortalium omnium sapientissimum red- 
'' didit?" DeResur. i. 15. 

T 3 



278 Scriptural testimonies 

" for to-morrow we die." But in the latter instance, 
says Warburton, "it is brought in to be confuted 
" and condemned ^ ;" for it is immediately followed 
by these words, " Be not deceived : evil communica- 
" tions corrupt good manners™." I would ask then, 
for what other purpose than that of confutation and 
censure, are such sentiments introduced by Solomon 
in a work, where we find them explicitly contradict- 
ed by his own deliberate and serious opinions ? For 
it is deserving of remark, that there does not occur, 
in this whole passage, a single sentiment, which is 
not plainly repugnant to those sentiments which the 
writer of it has elsewhere delivered, and which he 
has so expressed that they appear to be the genuine 
feelings of his mind. You are here taught, for in- 
stance, that hfe is better than death : but you are in- 
structed by Solomon, that the day of death is better 
than the day of one's birth". You are here exhorted 
to eat, drink, and be merry : but the doctrine of the 
preacher is, that the house of mourning is to be pre- 
ferred to that of feasting, and that the heart of fools 
is in the house of mirth °. Here it is said, that death 
is the final boundary of man's existence: but you 
are at one time solemnly assured by Solomon, that 
God will judge the actions of men ; and you find him 
repeatedly acknowledging, that such judgment does 
not take effect in the present life. Lastly, if further 
evidence be wanting, let the following be observed. 
Solomon declares, that the wickedness of man takes 
encouragement from the tardy proceedings of divine 
justice and the seeming inequalities of the divine 

* Div. Leg. b. v. §. 5. p. 183. note. "^ 1 Cor. xv. 32. 
" Kccles. vji. 1. ^' Eecles. vii. 2, 4. 



adduced and examined. 279 

government. " Because sentence against an evil 
" work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart 
" of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil." 
But he gives you to understand at the same time, 
that no man Vv^ill, in the final issue of things, be borne 
out by such an encouragement. For immediately 
after saying this, he supposes the case of a sinner, who 
does evil an hundred times, and vv^hose days are pro- 
longed : of this very character he declares, that it 
shall not be well with him, and that he shall not 
prolong his days, and that his days are as a shadow. 
What can be the meaning of this ? His days a7'e pro- 
longed, and yet his days shall not he prolonged. It 
can only mean, that though his days be many upon 
earth, yet, after this life is ended, the day of gladness 
shall never beam upon him again ; he has had his 
portion in this world : and thus his days are only as 
a shadow, the common image by which scripture de- 
notes the fleeting condition of man's present state '\ 
But at the same time it is said, that it shall be well 
with them that fear God ^. 

II. Among the citations of Warburton, there are 
others, which are not supposed to convey the autho- 
ritative language of the scriptural writer in whose 
book they occur, but only to furnish historical evi- 
dence of the sentiments of the speaker whose words 
they record. Of this nature are the words of the 
woman of Tekoah to king David : '' For we must 
" needs die, and are as water spilt on the ground, 
" which cannot he gathered up again''" Hence it 
is inferred, that the doctrine of a future state was 

I'SeePsal.cix. 23. cxliv. 4. Eccl. vi. 12. ^ Eccl. viii. II, 12, !3, 
^ 2 Sam. xiv. 14. 

T 4 



282 Scrlphiral testimonies 

state was, according to his view, the doctrine of Mo- 
ses, and the general and ancient persuasion of his na- 
tion, as well as of himself ''. 

The point for which we contend will be further 
evinced, by a reference to one of the passages which 
Warburton has himself adduced. The words are 
those of Hezekiah : " For the grave cannot praise 
" thee, death cannot celebrate thee : they that go 
" down into the pit cannot hope for thy truth. The 
" living, the living, he shall praise thee, as I do this 
" day : the father to the children shall make known 
" thy truth ^." These words are construed into a proof, 
first, that Hezekiah did not believe a future state ; 
and, in an ulterior application of them, that a future 
state was not the popular belief of the Israelites in 
the age of the prophet Isaiah. What their real pur- 
port is, might perhaps be unfolded, with little diffi- 
culty, from an attentive view of the context y. But 
with this I am not at present concerned, my purpose 
being, simply to shew that they do not warrant the 

" Toj^ [xevroi ye Kara Tovt; vojxovi; nravra irpaTTovai, to yepai; ecrriv ovk 
apyvpot;, ouSe ^puiro?, ov f^rjv ovde Konyov crrecpayoi;, vj (reXivoVf Kai rotavT^ nq 
avaKrjpv^K;, aXK' avrot; eKaarog avra to crtvetSo^ e^^-'J^ [Aaprtpovv, KcnKneiKt' 
TOT MEN NOMO0ETOT nP0*HTET2ANT02, TOT AE ©EOT DI- 
2TIN I2XTPAN DAPESXH KOTOS, or; to*? rovq vofJiov<; ^ia.fvXa^aa-i, 
K^v, €1 Seot dvYjCTKeiv lirep avruv, 7:po6v[A.aq anoBavova-i, eSwKev o 0eo? -yeveo-- 
Bai re TtaAiv, Kai ^lov afAeiva Xa^eiv €K itepirpoitriq. CIkvovv 8' av eyco vvv 
ravra ypacbeiv' ei (avj hia rccv epycov airaaiv rjv (pavepov, on iroXKoi Kai TtoX- 
XaKi<; fi^yi ruv Tjixerepuv, Ttepi rov fxrjhe p-fjixa (p9ey^acr6ui nzapa rov vo/xoj/, 
-navra izadeiv yevyatO}<; icpoeiXovro. Contr, Ap. ii. 30. 

^ Isaiah xxxviii. 18, 19. 

y '* I said, I shall not see the Lord, even the Lord, in the land 
*' of the living : I shall behold man no more with the inhabitants 
" of the world." ver. 1 I . Here the qualification is expressed, which 
in the previous citation may well be supposed to be understood. 



adduced and examined. 283 

inference of Warburton. For this purpose I refer to 
another passage from the same prophet, which, in a 
manner of much more direct and obvious application, 
proves the direct contrary. The words relate to the 
destruction of the king of Babylon : " Hell from be- 
^' neath is moved for thee to meet thee at thy com- 
" ing : it stirreth up the dead for thee, even all the 
" chief ones of the earth ; it hath raised up from 
" their thrones all the kings of the nations. All they 
'* shall speak and shall say unto thee. Art thou also 
" become weak as we ? Art thou become hke unto 
" us^?" These w^ords, as Dr. Graves has justly ob- 
served, afford a plain proof, " that the idea and the 
" conviction of a future state were perfectly familiar 
" to both the prophet and his readers'^." It is wholly 
unreasonable and unnatural to suppose, that such 
language could otherwise have been employed. If 
the Jewish people in the time of Isaiah had been, as 
Warburton contends, wholly strangers to this doc- 
trine, it is hardly possible that the sacred writer 
should thus have introduced the mention of it in a 
manner which obviously indicates its previous recep- 
tion and general prevalence^. 

Our work might be thought defective, if we did 

* Isaiah xiv. 9, 10. ^ Lectures on the Pentateuch. 

^ The error of the Sadducees, in denying a future state, was ge- 
nerated by their ignorance and misconception of scripture. '* Ye 
'* do err, not knowing the scriptures^ It is rather remarkable, 
that the collection of texts, brought forward by bishop Warburton 
for the purpose of proving the disbelief of this doctrine among the 
Israelites, is almost precisely the same with that which was made 
by the Sadducees as their authority for a denial of its truth. This 
will be seen on a reference to the treatise of Menasseh on the 
Resurrection, lib. i. c. 7 . 



284 Scriptural testimonies 

not, after offering the foregoing observations for the 
purpose of repelling the inference of Warburton, ad- 
duce direct evidence in support of the contrary pro- 
position. It will therefore be incumbent on us to 
treat, in the next place, of the historical proof, which 
the scriptures afford, to that effect. 

The passages which we shall quote, and the facts 
to which we shall refer, for that purpose, will be only 
such as may seem, in the estimation of candour, to 
be perfectly clear of dubious interpretation. Many 
others are commonly alleged. If we pass them over 
in silence, it is not because we wish to dispute their 
application ; but because it seems desirable, that the 
strength of the argument should rest on those pas- 
sages alone, of which the construction is least debat- 
able. 

But in order to a proper estimate of the value and 
amount of the evidence, which, in relation to this 
subject, the scriptures of the Old Testament actually 
supply ; it will be proper to inquire in the first place, 
how much of such evidence we might, from a just 
regard to the circumstances under which those scrip- 
tures were composed, reasonably expect to find in 
them. We are to observe, that the reasoning of 
Warburton appeals, partly to the positive declarations 
of the sacred writers, and partly to their silence. 
The former argument we have already considered : 
the course of observation now leads us to offer a few 
words in exclusive relation to the latter. But first 
the argument itself shall be stated in the words of 
the author. " The sacred writings are extremely 
" various in their subject, style, and composition. 
'* They contain an account of the creation and ori- 



adduced and examined. 285 

" gin of the human race ; the history of a private fa- 
" mily, of a chosen people, and of exemplary men 
" and women. They consist of hymns and petitions 
" to the Deity, precepts of civil life, and religious 
" prophecies and predictions. Hence I infer, that 
" as, amidst all this variety of writing, the doctrine 
" of a future state never once appears to have had 
*' any share in this people's thoughts ; it never did 
" indeed make part of their religious opinions^." 
Such is the argument ; to which our objection is 
twofold. First, the statement which it contains is 
contrary to fact. Secondly, were the statement ad- 
mitted, still the inference is fallacious. We will first 
consider the inference. 

Let it then be remarked, that it is very unfair to 
argue, in the way of deducing the opinions of any 
person, or class of persons, merely from the want of 
evidence that they held the contrary opinions. Yet 
such is the nature of the argument before us : The 
Israelites did not believe a future state, because the 
Old Testament affords no evidence that they did. 

There can be little reason to expect the introduc- 
tion of an author's opinions on a subject, of which he 
does not treat ; or to calculate on his affording evi- 
dence in relation to a subject, on which he does not 
profess to give information. Let this be applied to 
the case before us. The question is, If the early 
Israelites entertained the belief of a future state in 
common, and in the same degree, with other nations, 
how do you account for the deficiency of historical 
evidence that they did ? Admitting for the present 

<" Book V. §.5. p. 17o. 



286 Scriptural testimonies 

this deficiency, (which however we admit only hypo- 
thetically,) the answer is : Because we are not to ex- 
pect the narrative of scripture to deviate from its 
course, for the sake of giving information which is 
foreign to its object. That which Paley observes 
respecting the influence of religion in general, may 
fitly be applied to that particular motive of religion 
which is derived from the prospect of a future life. 
In regard to such a subject, the representations of 
history will necessarily be defective ; because the 
motive is most operative on those persons, and under 
those circumstances, of which history knows the 
least. History is chiefly employed on public and na- 
tional transactions, and such transactions are com- 
monly stimulated by temporal, not by future, mo- 
tives ; whereas the influence of religion, and the con- 
templation of a future state, are secret and invisible^. 
It does not appear that the history of the Israelites 
materially differs, as to this point, from the character 
of history in general. 

But we are told, that this is not the case with the 
literary records of other nations among whom the 
belief of a future state is known to have existed : 
the history of the Saracens, for instance, and the 
poetry of the Suevi^, are full of it. True : and why 
are they so? Because it is peculiar to both these 

^ Paley's Evidences, part iii. c.7. 

* I have used the term Suevi to denote, collectively, those va- 
rious tribes of northern warriors among whom the religion of Odin 
prevailed, and who established their settlements in the southern 
provinces of Europe on the ruins of the Roman empire. This em- 
ployment of the term is not indeed correct; but I have adopted it, 
as having been employed in the same sense in that part of War- 
hurton's work to which these observations relate. 



adduced and examined. 287 

nations, that the passion for conquest formed a 
leading feature of their character, and that the 
doctrine of a future state was the very motive, by 
which, according to their national institutions and 
religion, they were stimulated to encounter death in 
the conflicts of war. The frequent occurrence of 
that doctrine might therefore reasonably be expected 
in their literature : since war is the principal theme 
of every history, as it is also in the Runic poetry of 
the northern tribes. For the very same reason, it 
could not be reasonably expected in the literature of 
the Israelites. The difference of the two cases is 
very striking, and ought to be attentively remarked. 
The courage of armies is chiefly sustained, either 
by the contempt of death or the confidence of vic- 
tory. The former of these sentiments will always 
be found to prevail in its greatest strength, when it 
is generated by the sure persuasion of immortal 
happiness in a future life K It was thus that the 
martial character was sustained both in the Arabs and 
the Suevi. Mahomet, the leader of the Arabs, in- 
flamed the valour of his followers by promising the 
delights of a sensual paradise to such as should pe- 
rish in battle. Of Odin, the lawgiver of the Suevi, 
the same is recorded : and, if both the person and 
the tradition be fabulous, the belief that he did so 

•" '* Spes resurrectionis fastidium est mortis." Tert. ad Nat. I. 1 9. 
The northern nations are thus described by Lucan : 

" Quos ille tiraorum 
*' Maximus baud nrget, leti metus. Inde ruendi 
" In ferrum mens prona viris, animaeque capaces 
" Mortis : et ignavum reditur^ parcere viTiE." 

Pharsalia I. 459. 



288 Smptural testimonies 

was nevertheless firmly entertained by his votaries. 
The paradise to which they aspired was called the 
Palace of the Slain ; and none were admitted to its 
pleasures, but such as had fallen on the plain of car- 
nage with their swords in their hands ». But with 
the Israelites the case was very different. They, 
indeed, like the nations with whom they are thus 
compared, went out in search of new possessions, 
which they were to win by the sword: but with 
them, after their settlement in the promised land, 
war was not, as it was with the Suevi and Arabs, 
a part of the national and permanent policy. For 
this reason, the motives of the warlike character 
would less frequently occur in their history. And 
with regard to these motives themselves, we are to 
observe, that the military courage of the people was 
not, in this instance, supported by the contempt of 
death, but by a motive which, had Moses been an 
impostor, he would not have thought of employing, 
namely, the confidence of victory. Such was one of 
the promises annexed to obedience : " It shall come 
" to pass," says the lawgiver of Israel, " if thou shalt 
" hearken diligently unto the voice of the Lord 
" thy God, to observe and to do all his command- 
" ments which I command thee this day, that the 
" Lord thy God will set thee on high above all 
" nations of the earth : and all these blessings shaU 
" come on thee and overtake thee, if thou shalt 
" hearken unto the voice of the Lord thy God." 
Among the blessings thus promised is contained the 

p i;ee Mallet's Northern Antiquities, and Bartholinus ck' cauvsis 
conlcinj)tte mortis. 



adduced and examined, 289 

following : " The Lord shall cause thine enemies that 
" rise up against thee to be smitten before thy face : 
" they shall come out against thee one way, and 
** flee before thee seven ways=." Again : " The Lord 
" thy Godj he will go over before thee, and he will 
" destroy these nations from before thee, and thou 

" shalt possess them And the Lord shall give 

" them up before your face, that ye may do unto 
" them according unto all the commandments w hich 
" I have commanded you. Be strong and of a good 
" courage^ fear not, nor he afraid of them : for the 
" Lord thy God, he it is that doth go with thee; he 
" will 7iotfail thee, nor forsake tliee^T 

Let us however take indifferently the case of any 
other nation, respecting whom we have sufficient in- 
formation to enable us to decide. That of the ancient 
Greeks will not be unsuitable. I would observe 
then : Had the Odyssey of Homer perished, how 
little evidence would his Iliad have supplied respect- 
ing the belief of that people in a future state ? The 
passages in that poem which afford an indication of 
such belief, are by no means more numerous in pro- 
portion, than the passages of the same character in 
the scriptures of the Old Testament. I am not the 
first, indeed, who has drawn a parallel on this sub- 
ject from the poetry of Homer : and I am aware, 
that the great writer whose views I have presumed 
to controvert, has honoured the parallel with the name 
of " a ridiculous comparison." One reason for so de- 
signating it is, because the Old Testament is a reli- 
gious history, but the poetry of Homer is not : we may 

^ Deut. xxviii. '^ Deut. xxxi. 

U 



290 Scriptural testimonies 

therefore expect a fuller account of religious motives 
in the former than in the latter. This very reason, 
I apprehend, goes to prove, that though a future 
state were fully and generally believed by the early 
Israelites, we have little reason to expect much 
mention of it in the Old Testament. For we have 
shewn, that that doctrine could not appear, in the 
form of explicit statement, in the legislative part of 
that book. We are therefore to look for it only in 
the historical : and here, we must expect to find it 
noticed, if at all, only incidentally, as occasions may 
arise in the course of the narrative of noticing its 
existence or operation. Now in this way of men- 
tion, which is the only way of probable occurrence, 
there must be less reason to expect it in the sacred 
history of the Israelites, than in any other history 
whatever : because this history relates to us the af- 
fairs of a people, whose law proposed to them a pe- 
culiar sanction, relating to the present, and not to a 
future, life. As this sanction would often constitute 
the motive of those actions which their history re- 
cords, the motive of a future state would for that 
Very reason occur to our notice the less frequently : 
since the motive of a future life is most energetic, 
and its effects are most visible, at those times^ when 
the motives belonging to our present state are too 
weak to sustain the rectitude of our conduct. 

Thus much it has been necessary to observe, in 
reply to the inference deduced by Warburton from 
the alleged silence of the Old Testament. But it 
will be remembered, that we not only object to the 
reasoning on the supposition that the assumption is 
true, but we also deny the truth of the assumption 



adduced and examined, 2191 

itself. In support of that denial we appeal to the 
evidence which we are about to offer. 

" The Israelites," says Warburton, " from the time 
" of Moses to the time of their captivity, had not the 
" doctrine of a future state of reward and punish- 
" ment." In proof of the contrary, I refer, in the first 
place, to the history of Saul, who desired to consult 
the prophet Samuel after his death. I have nothing 
to do with the disputes which have been maintained 
respecting other parts of that remarkable narrative, 
but only insist upon one point, which, I believe, never 
was, nor can be, disputed. I say then, in the words 
of bishop Bull, that " this history undeniably proves, 
" that Saul believed that the soul of Samuel was still 
" in being, and alive, after his body was dead and 
'' laid in the grave \" Surely we must admit, that, 
in this instance, personality entered into the idea 
entertained by Saul of the survivorship of the soul. 
If, according to the notion of Warburton, he had 
thought that the spirit of Samuel was now reunited 
to its parent substance, he could not have wished to 
converse with it : he could not have desired, that it 
should be again restored to its distinct existence for 
the purpose of communication with him. If the per- 
sonality be granted, as a part of the belief of Saul, 
then, on the principles of Warburton himself, Saul 
must also have believed in future rewards and pu- 
nishments: since the great writer himself has told us, 
that the idea of personality is " only annexed to 
" the rewards and punishments of a future state.'* 
Again, if such were his belief, it cannot reasonably 

' Serni. viii. 
U 2 



292 Scriptural testimonies 

be supposed, that it was not also the general belief of 
his age and country : for the sacred historian says no- 
thing which may lead us to suppose, that Saul was 
singular in his notions ; and yet, if that singularity 
had existed, it was certainly too remarkable to ad- 
mit the supposition of its being passed over in si- 
lence. After what has now been said, it may justly 
occasion some surprise, when we find this incident 
regarded by Warburton as proving, not the immor- 
tality of the soul considered in a religious sense, but 
its separate existence , considered physically M 

My next proof shall be derived from the Law it- 
self; and the statement of it shall be partly given 
in the words of Warburton himself. " From the very 
*' laws of Moses himself," says he, " we have an in- 
** ternal evidence of his knowledge of this doctrine. 
*' Amongst the laws against Gentile divinations, 
" there is one directed against that species of them, 
*' called by the Greeks necromancy, or invocation of 
" the dead ^ ; which necessarily implies, i?i the law- 
" giver ivho Jh?^hids it, as well as in the offender 
" ivho uses it, the knowledge of a future state ^" 
And must not such a law^, which evinces the know- 
ledge of a future state in the lawgiver, suppose the 
same knowledge to have existed in those to whom 
it was given ? Or, if it be said, that the Israelites 
had not yet, at the delivery of this law^ parted with 
their belief in this doctrine, (for it is confessed that 
they had that doctrine before the time of Moses,) 
would they not have thus gained the knowledge of 



' Div. Leg. b. vi. Nolo [LL J at the end of vol. v. 

^ Dcul. xviii, 10, 1 1. ' Div. Leg. App. to b. v, p. 20;». 



adduced and examined. 293 

it ? A law which forbids men to consult the spirits 
of the dead, conveys an obvious recognition of both 
the existence, and the personality, of those spirits. 
Let it be observed, that there is no distinguishing in 
this case between the separate existence of the soul, 
and its future rewards and punishments : for it is 
of the latter doctrine that the great writer is here 
speaking. 

I will now adduce a third instance. The words 
which I shall quote are not indeed those of an Israel- 
ite : but they occur in the Pentateuch as the words 
of a prophet; and the sacred text seems to intimate"^, 
that they were spoken by the immediate direction of 
God. When Balaam, after repeated and urgent soli- 
citations, declares his determination not to disobey 
the command of God, he thus explains the motive of 
his conduct : " Let me die the death of the right- 
" eous, and let my last end be like his'^." It is plain, 
then, that Balaam's inclination to disobey was re- 
strained by the prospect of death. On this fact, and 
on these words, it is hardly necessary to offer any 
other comment than that which is supplied by War- 
burton himself. " How should a picture of this scene 
" allure men to virtue, or deter them from vice, but 
" as it opens to them a view of those rewards and 
" punishments they are just going to receive®?" We 
must indeed be truly at a loss to conceive what 
other construction could be put upon it ; and equally 
at a loss to explain how a people, who found a pas- 
sage like this in their national code, could be igno- 



"^ Num. xxii. 38. and xxiii. 5. 12. » Ibid, ver. 10. 

° Div. Leg. Note [C] at the end of b. ii. p. 3.03. vol.i. 
u 3 



294 ScripUi7*al testimonies 

rant of the doctrine of future rewards and punish- 
ments. 

Judging it unnecessary to proceed further with 
this discussion, I will conclude with briefly summing 
up the evidence which has been adduced. That the 
survival of the soul was believed by the early Is- 
raelites, is a necessary deduction from a variety of 
scriptural passages. But it is contended, that a be- 
lief in the survival of the soul does not include a 
belief in its personality. We reply, that some, at 
least, of the above passages are such as plainly to 
convey the notion of distinct personality, as well as 
that of survivorship. Such is that which records the 
interview of Saul with the witch of Endor; and 
that which describes the salutation of the Baby- 
lonian king by the spirits of the mighty dead, on 
his first entrance into the abode of separated souls. 
These passages, I say, convey the plainest notion of 
personality ; since nothing can do so more fully, 
than the actions of rising from a seat, of speaking, 
conversing, and of being consulted. If now it be 
admitted, that the personality of the surviving soul 
was believed by the Israelites, then, according to 
Warburton, the doctrine of rewards and punish- 
ments must necessarily have been so likewise : since 
he tells us, that the idea of personality subsisted 
only in union with that of rewards and punish- 
ments P. But, not to content ourselves with a per- 
sonal argument, we contend, on more general prin- 
ciples^ that if the ideas of survivorship and of per- 
sonality be admitted to have entered into the belief, 
entertained by the Israelites respecting the future 

V See tlie extract, pp. 265, 2fjfi. of this work. 



adduced and examined, 295 

destiny of the soul ; then the doctrine of rewards 
and punishments must also have formed a part of 
that belief. For it is impossible to entertain the no- 
tion, of an apathy so great and so repugnant to the 
common sentiments of human nature, as that which 
is involved in the belief of an eternal existence, un- 
attended with any solicitude respecting the happi- 
ness or misery of that existence : and it is equally 
impossible, in the case of a people so well instructed 
as the Israelites were in relation to the moral attri- 
butes of their Creator, that they should have enter- 
tained the notion of happiness or misery in con- 
nexion with the prospect of a future life, and yet 
not have believed, that such happiness and misery 
would be determined by the righteous judgment of 
God upon the actions of men. 

One remark we deem it proper to add, in regard 
to numerous other passages in the sacred volume, 
which are commonly insisted on, as affording evi- 
dence and illustration of the popular faith of the Is- 
raelites in regard to a future state, but which have 
not been quoted in our discourse upon the subject. 
They have been omitted, chiefly because it was our 
wish to appeal to no passages but such as afford, not 
merely a natural and probable, but also a necessary, 
inference, to the effect of supporting our own views : 
and also, because it seemed most desirable to limit 
ourselves to those, which least called for prolixity of 
discussion and controversy in proof of their applica- 
tion. Many of these passages are however greatly 
available for the general purpose of proving, that 
the scriptures are by no means so silent on the sub- 

TT 4 



S96 Scriptural testimonies 

ject as they have been said to be. The following 
may serve for an example : " As for man, his days 
" are as grass : as a flower of the field, so he flou- 
" risheth. For the wind passeth over it, and it is 
" gone ; and the place thereof shall know it no 
" more. JBut the mercy of the Lord is from ever- 
" lasting to everlasting upon them that fear him, 
" and his righteousness unto children's children ; to 
" such as keep his covenant, and to those that re- 
" member his commandments to do them ^." Many 
other passages of similar complexion might here be 
introduced ; but the foregoing will suffice for our 
purpose. On such passages we have declined to in- 
sist, as affording in themselves decisive proof of the 
belief in a future state. But having deduced the 
evidence of that belief from other considerations, we 
feel at least entitled to contend, that the prospect of 
a future state must have had the fullest influence 
on the minds of those, by whom such language was 
employed : if, therefore, such passages do not un- 
equivocally declare the doctrine, they must at least 
be construed agreeably to the belief of it. It is 
here, for instance, declared, that " the mercy of the 
*' Lord is from everlasting to everlasting upon them 
" that fear him." Can a declaration like this have 
dropped from a person believing a future state, if 
his soul had not at the time been filled with the 
most ravishing thoughts of future and eternal bliss ? 
The improbability of such a notion will appear more 
forcibly, if we reflect, that the sacred writer had 
just before declared, that " the mercy of God toward 

M Psalm ciii. 15—18. 



adduced and examined. 297 

" them that fear him is great, as the heaven is high 
^' above the earth ; and that he hath removed our 
" transgressions from us^ as far as the east is from 
" the west." If the doctrine of a future state was 
believed by the writer of this psalm, there must be 
some allusion to it here : for the sacred penman of 
it must assuredly have known, that death was the 
doom incurred by man's transgression. The same 
reasoning might be pursued in reference to a great 
multitude of similar passages : if a future state was 
believed by the speakers or writers from whom 
those passages are derived, it is wholly unnatural 
to suppose, that it was not the subject of their 
contemplation at the time when they so expressed 
themselves. Such passages, therefore, though we 
should allow that they avail not to prove and as- 
certain the belief of the Israelites ; must yet, on the 
supposition of that belief being entertained, be ad- 
mitted, by reason of their frequency, wholly to an- 
nul the argument, which is framed on the ground of 
the alleged silence of the sacred writers. So far 
then shall we be, on a true view of the case, from 
admitting, with Warburton, that " the doctrine of a 
** future state never once appears to have had any 
" share in this people's thoughts^';" that we should 
argue with more probability, from the foregoing and 
many similar passages, that it must have been up- 
permost in their thoughts. More than this we can- 
not reasonably expect : since it is quite unnatural, 
unless when people's opinions are called in question, 
that they should declare themselves on such a sub- 

' Div. Leg. b. v. §. 5. p. 17^). vol. v 



298 Scriptural testimonies 

ject with the studied precision of confessions and 
articles of faith : and least of all is such precision to 
be expected, when the language employed is that of 
impassioned exclamation and devotional poetry. 

The result of this investigation will be the more 
satisfactory, if there shall appear a perfect agree- 
ment between the doctrine of our church, and that 
which we have endeavoured to establish on the au- 
thority of the Divine word. In order to illustrate 
their concurrence, we appeal to the following au- 
thentic declaration. 

" Article VII. Of the Old Testament. The Old 
" Testament is not contrary to the New: for both 
" in the Old and New Testament everlasting life 
" is offered to mankind by Christ, who is the only 
" Mediator between God and man, being both God 
** and man. Wherefore they are not to he heard, 
" which feign that the old fathers did look only 
^'for transitory promises'' 

Nothing could more exactly harmonize with those 
great principles which it has throughout been our 
desire to enforce. Both in the Old and New Testa- 
ment, everlasting life is offered to mankind : but it 
is offered only hy Christ, or through Christ; for 
that is the proper import of the passage ^. So far as 
Christ is made known to the world, eternal life is 
also made known. While the Redeemer is discerned 
only through a mysterious veil, the doctrine of eter- 
nal life is wrapped in similar obscurity. When the 
mystery is partly cleared up, then eternal life is 

s " Pfr Christum." Lruin Articles. 



adduced and examined, S99 

holden out to mankind with a proportioned increase 
in the clearness of the prospect. At last, the Son of 
God is manifested in the flesh, and pays the ap- 
pointed ransom for the souls of men : then life and 
immortality are fully brought to light by the gos- 
pel; and the gospel is the doctrine of the cross. 
Throughout the whole succession of detached reve- 
lations, the discoveries on these two subjects keep 
pace with, and are justly proportioned to, each other. 
They subsist nowhere in a state of separation. 

To the same tenour is the language of our church 
in one of her homilies. " Although" the holy men 
who lived before the coming of Christ " were not 
" named Christian men, yet was it a Christian faith 
" that they had ; for they looked for all the benefits 
" of God the Father^ through the merits of his Son 
" Jesus Christ, as we now do. This difference is 
" between them and us ; for they looked vjJien 
" Christ should come, and we he in the time when 
" he is come. Therefore, saith saint Augustine, the 
" time is altered and changed, but not ilae faith ^" 

" Wherefore they are not to be heard, which 
^' feign that the old fathers did look only for transi- 
" tory promises." This, to an ordinary mind, would 
appear totally inconsistent with the notion, that the 
doctrine of a future state was unknown to the Is- 
raelites from the time of Moses to that of the Cap- 
tivity. Our attention is therefore due to the me- 
thod, by which the consistency of the two doc- 
trines is vindicated by Warburton. This is done by 
construing the word " Fathers" as an emphatical 

^ The second p.irt of the sermon of Faith. 



300 Scriptural testimonies adduced, 8x^c. 

term, designed to signify exclusively "the fathers and 
" leaders of the Jewish nation "," (such for instance 
as Abraham, the father of the faithful,) as distin- 
guished from the hidk of the people. We must be 
excused, if we regard this as nothing better than a 
wretched quibble, wholly unworthy of the great ge- 
nius by whom it is employed. The word thus ex- 
pounded cannot reasonably be vmderstood in this 
place, as having any other meaning than that which 
is affixed to it, when familiarly employed to de- 
signate persons who lived at a remote and ancient 
period. If proof of this be wanting, we have only 
to refer to the Latin version of the Articles, which 
is equally authentic with the English. Here it will 
be found, that the very emphatical word, insisted 
upon as a key to the right interpretation of the 
church, is nothing more than a mere expletive, in- 
troduced only, because the genius of our language 
does not, in this instance, like the Latin, admit the 
employment of an adjective in a substantive form ; 
for it is not even to be found in the text of the Ar- 
ticle : " Quare male sentiunt, qui yeteres tantum 
" in promissiones temporarias sperasse confingunt." 

" Div. Leg. b. vi. §.5. pp. 1 , 2, 3, vol. vi. 



Other instances of omission, S^c. 301 



CHAPTER VII. 

OTHER llEMARKABLE INSTANCES OF OMISSION IN THE MO- 
SAIC CODE, EXPLAINED ON THE PllINCIPLE WHICH HAS 
BEEN APPLIED TO THE OMISSION OF THE DOCTRINE OF 
A FUTURE STATE. 

A HERE are many points in the Christian dispen- 
sation, in which, with regard to the fulness of its 
discoveries and the greatness of its encouragements, 
we recognise the most unequivocal marks of superi- 
ority over the Mosaical economy. Of this character 
are three of its distinguishing doctrines : namely, the 
doctrines of a future state, of prayer, and of the 
sanctification of the Holy Spirit. 

The former of these doctrines has been considered 
at large : and we have endeavoured, we trust satis- 
factorily, to account for the different lights in which 
it is placed under the two covenants. As the hopes 
of man relating to this doctrine have not, according 
to the will of God, any other foundation than the 
atonement of Christ : so has it been our design to 
prove, that derangement and disadvantage would 
necessarily have been occasioned to the plan of re- 
vealed religion, if eternal life had been openly pro- 
mised under the Mosaic law ; or if it had in any way 
whatever been promised, without a manifest refer- 
ence to the sacrifice by which it was purchased for 
mankind. At the same time, we have argued, that, 
notwithstanding the absence of direct assurances in 
the writings of their legislator, the doctrine of a fu- 
ture state was fully entertained and believed by the 



302 Other instances of omission 

Israelitish nation during every period of their his- 
tory. 

We will now, in like manner, advert to the two 
remaining doctrines of those which we have speci- 
fied. On entering upon this subject, a feeling of 
surprise may justly be indulged, when we find, that 
the omission of a future state in the Pentateuch 
should have furnished the occasion of so much dis- 
cussion and controversy ; while the silence of that 
institute with regard to the subjects of prayer and 
sanctification, (belonging, as those subjects do, to 
the vital essence of religion, and indispensably ne- 
cessary, as they are, to the circumstances of a de- 
pendent and fallen creature,) should have been 
passed over with an almost total inadvertency. 
These latter doctrines, as we shall endeavour to 
make appear, stand upon precisely the same footing, 
in the system of revealed religion, with the former. 
The silence of the Pentateuch respecting them can 
be explained, only by contemplating the relation in 
which they stand to the death of Christ, considered 
as a sacrifice of expiation for the sins of the world. 

I. We will consider the doctrine of prayer. It 
will readily be acknowledged, that prayer is the 
very essence of all religious worship : so much so, 
that we can scarcely form a notion of religion, in 
which that duty is not included. Is it not then 
truly remarkable, that in a code professedly reli- 
gious, in the earliest code of religion, and in the 
only code of true religion which for many ages was 
extant in the world ; so very little should be said on 
the subject of prayer ? 

It has been asserted, that prayer is nowhere en- 



in the Pentateuch, explained. 303 

joined to the children of Israel under the Law \ 
This however is not strictly correct. At the end of 
the tithing every three years, the people were 
commanded to offer up prayer to God according to 
the following solemn form of adoration : " I have 
" brought away the hallowed things out of mine 
" house, and also have given them unto the Levite, 
*^ and unto the stranger, to the fatherless, and to 
*' the widow, according to all thy commandments 
" which thou hast commanded me: I have not 
*' transgressed thy commandments, neither have I 
" forgotten them : I have not eaten thereof in my 
" mourning, neither have I taken away ought there- 
" of for any unclean use, nor given ought thereof for 
" the dead : but I have hearkened to the voice of the 
" Lord my God, and have done according to all that 
*' thou hast commanded me. Look down from thy 
** holy habitation, from heaven, and bless thy people 
" Israel, arid the land which thou hast given us, 
" as thou swarest unto our fathers, a land that 
'^floweth with milk and honey yT This, I believe, 

^ This position is by bishop Bull ascribed to Episcopius. The 
words of Bull are, " Ut in manifesto fuisse errore videatur doctis- 
** simus Episcopius, cum dicat, nuspiam et nunquam in Lege 
" praecationem populo praescriptam legi." Harm. Ap. Diss. Post, 
ex. §.5. The language of Episcopius in the passage referred 
to, does not however appear exactly to warrant the construction 
thus put upon it. It is as follows : " Nuspiam in lege Divina 
** aperte praecipitur omnibus ac singulis oratio." And again; 
'* Nobis hie sufficit indicasse, nullum singulare ea de re praecep- 
" turn expresse datum reperiri, quod quidem inter ilia 613. [pra5- 
" cepta a Rabbinis enumerata] recenseri meretur." Inst. Theol. 
lib. iii. sec. 2. cap. I . 

y Deut. xxvi. 13, 14, 15. 



304 Other instances of omission 

is the only instance which the Law supplies, in which 
prayer can be regarded as a subject of general and 
extended obligation. 

So also at the expiation of an uncertain murder, 
the elders of the city, next adjoining to the place in 
which a man is found dead, are instructed to pray 
after this manner : " Our hands have not shed this 
" blood, neither have our eyes seen it. JBe merci- 
"' fid, O Lo7'd, unto thy people Israel, whom thou 
" hast redeemed, and lay not innocent Mood unto 
" thy people of Israel's charge'^ T 

To these instances of prescribed prayer some 
would add, as a third, the form of words in which 
Aaron and his sons were required to bless the 
people : " The Lord bless thee, and keep thee : 
" the Lord make his face shine upon thee, and he 
" gracious unto thee : the Lord lift up his counte- 
" nance upon thee, and give thee peace ^." 

The foregoing are, I believe, all the instances 
contained in the Pentateuch, in which prayer is 
distinctly enjoined as a matter of obligation. The 
following circumstances, in connexion with these in- 
stances, are truly deserving of remark. 

The first case which we have cited furnishes a 
precept, of which the observance could not be more 
frequent than onc« in three years ; which could ap- 
ply to the males only, since they only had tithes to 
present; and which could not even apply to the 
whole of the male population, since the Levites and 
others were not burdened with the charge of this 
triennial tithing, but maintained out of it. The se- 
cond instance introduces a precept relating to a con- 
' Dent. xxi. 7,8. "" Numb. vi. 24, 23, 26. 



in the Pentateuch, explained. 305 

tingent occasion, which probably might never occur 
to many individuals during the whole course of 
their lives. The remaining instance applies only to 
the sacerdotal office. 

But whatever stress may be laid upon the fore- 
mentioned instances ; you cannot extract from the 
Pentateuch any injunction of prayer, applicable to 
both persons and times, in that extensive mode of 
obligation, which is suitable to the condition of every 
rational and dependent creature in order to obtain 
from God the supply of his daily and continual 
wants. 

And, even though such precept could be alleged, 
it would further be impossible, to adduce from the 
Pentateuch any declaration of a blessing annexed 
to the duty of prayer, generally considered, or any 
general promise that prayer would be heard and 
granted. This is most essential in its application to 
the present subject, and perhaps still more remark- 
able than the omission of the precept itself. 

This last observation applies to prayer in general. 
Had it been made with regard to particular cases, 
its truth might have been disputed. It might have 
been objected, that the prayer of which the use is 
directed in the case of the uncertain murder, is fol- 
lowed by these words : " And the blood shall be 
" forgiven them ^." And it might also be urged, 
that the Aaronical form of blessing is followed by 
- these words : " And they shall put my name upon 
" the children of Israel ; and I will bless them ^." 
But even in this limited application, the objection 

'^ Deut. xxi. 8. '" Num. vi. 27. 

X 



306 Other instances of omission 

cannot be maintained. For with regard to the for- 
mer of the two cases, the words referred to cannot 
justly be regarded as a blessing specially annexed to 
prayer, or as a promise that the appointed prayer, 
considered in itself, and detached from its concomi- 
tant ceremonies, would be granted. That prayer is 
only a part of a ceremony circumstantially described ; 
and the words referred to contain nothing more 
than the ordinary assurance, annexed in numerous 
instances of the Mosaic ritual, when the sacramental 
efficacy of the Levitical sacrifices and expiations is 
declared. No less than eight examples of this occur 
in the fourth and fifth chapters of Leviticus where 
no prayer is prescribed ^. The forgiveness which is 
promised cannot, therefore, be considered as a bless- 
ing specifically annexed to the prayer which is of- 
fered : that prayer being only the part of a cere- 
mony which had been previously described, and 
which concludes after the manner of other ceremo- 
nial ordinances which were appointed as the means 
of remission. Thus much will suffice with regard 
to the former of these two cases. As to the words 
which follow after reciting the form of benediction, 
they appear to be declaratory of nothing further 
than the efficacy of the sacerdotal benediction of 
Aaron, considered as the mediator of temporal bless- 

The two following propositions then will remain in- 
controvertible : first. That the Mosaic writings con- 
tain no general injunction of prayer, applicable to 
all persons and times : secondly. That those writings 
contain no promise, relating to prayer in general, 
'' Levit. iv. 20. 2(3. 'M . 35. v. 10. 13. Ifi. 18. 



in the Pentateuch, explained, 307 

that it would be granted by God. This is all that 
is necessary to the line of argument we are pur- 
suing. 

Having sufficiently noticed the omission of the 
Mosaic Law in regard to the article of prayer ; it 
is time that we should advert to the injunctions, 
declarations, and promises, of the Gospel;, relating 
to the same subject. 

" Ask, and it shall be given you ; seek, and ye 
" shall find ; knock, and it shall be opened unto 
^' you : for every one that asketh receiveth ; and he 
" that seeketh findeth ; and to him that knocketh it 
" shall be opened. Or what man is there of you, 
" whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a 
" stone ? or if he ask a fish, will he give him a ser- 
" pent ? If ye then, being evil, know how to give 
" good gifts unto your children, how much more 
" shall your Father which is in heaven give good 
" things to them that ask him ^ ?" 

" If two of you shall agree on earth as touching 
" any thing that they shall ask, it shall be done for 
" them of my Father which is in heaven. For 
" where two or three are gathered together in my 
" name, there am I in the midst of them ^." 

" If ye then, being evil, know how to give good 
" gifts unto your children : how much more shall 
" your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to 
" them that ask him s ?" 

" If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, 
*' ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done 
" unto you ^." 

^ Matt. vii. 7—1 1 . J Matt, xviil. 1 9, 20. 

fi Luke xi. 13. h j^i^^ ^v. 7. 

X 2 



308 Other instances of omission 

" Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whatsoever ye 
** shall ask the Father in my name, he will give 
" it you. Hitherto have ye asked nothing in my 
" name : ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy 
" may be full. These things have I spoken unto you 
" in proverbs : but the time cometh, when I shall 
" no more speak unto you in proverbs, but I shall 
" shew you plainly of the Father. At that day ye 
" shall ask in my name : and I say not unto you, 
" that I will pray the Father for you : for the Fa- 
" ther himself loveth you, because ye have loved 
" me, and have believed that I came out from 
"GodV 

" Beloved, if our heart condemn us not, then 
" have we confidence towards God. And whatso- 
" ever we ask, we receive of him, because we keep 
" his commandments, and do those things that are 
" pleasing in his sight ^." 

" This is the confidence that we have in him, 
" that, if we ask any thing according to his will, he 
" heareth us : and if we know that he hear us, 
*^ whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the 
" petitions that we desired of him ^" 

These citations are made for the purpose of illus- 
trating, by contrast, the striking difference between 
the two covenants with regard to this important and 
vital doctrine. And what inference shall we draw 
from it ? Because the Mosaic writings are thus si- 
lent on the subject of prayer, shall we therefore in- 
fer, that neither prayer was offered, nor any belief 

i John xvi. 23—27. ' I John iU. 21, 22. 

k 1 John V.14, IT). 



in the Pentateuch, explained, 309 

of its efficacy entertained, by the subjects of that 
ritual? This consequence must unavoidably follow, 
if we subscribe to the parallel reasoning which has 
been employed by Warburton on another subject. 
" One might fairly conclude," says he, "that the 
" people's not having this doctrine, was a necessary 
" consequence of Moses's not teaching it, in a law 
" which forbids the least addition to the written in- 
" stitute "^." These words are applied by that writer 
to the doctrine of a future state. Let the doctrine 
of prayer however be substituted in its place : for 
that doctrine stands in the Mosaic ritual on the 
very same footing with the other. Then the argu- 
ment will be equally just in its application, with re- 
gard to both the doctrines : and the conclusion aris-^ 
ing from it will be, that neither prayer was ob- 
served, nor any belief of its efficacy entertained, by 
the Israelites, for many ages after the giving of the 
Law ! A position so manifestly false, that any at- 
tempt to disprove it by an induction of particulars, 
would be little less than an insult to the under- 
standing of the person to whom such a process of 
reasoning might be addressed. 

The following words exhibit the same argument 
in nearly the same form : " I go on to shew, that 
" future rewards and punishments, which could 
** NOT BE THE SANCTION of the Mosaic dispensa- 
" tion, WERE NOT TAUGHT in it at all: and that, 
" in consequence of this omission, the people had 
" not the doctrine of a future state for many 
" ages "." 

"^ Div. Leg. b. v. §. 5. vol. v. p. 174. 
" Ibid. b. V. §. 5. vol. v. p. 158. 

X 3 



310 Other instances of omission 

Is it not plain, that what is thus observed respect- 
ing a future state, must equally apply to prayer? 
And does it not, if so applied, lead to a flagrant ab- 
surdity ? Hence then we contend, that its fallacy, as 
applied to the former subject, must be equally mani- 
fest. 

The omission of this subject in the Pentateuch 
can admit no other reasonable explanation than the 
following. The law which Moses gave contained 
not in itself any thing, which could render prayer 
acceptable to God or effectual for the benefit of the 
worshipper. This could be accomplished only through 
the atonement of Christ. No man cometh unto the 
Father but by him. The promise is to those who 
shall ask in his name. We are to draw near in full 
assurance of faith, and to come boldly unto the 
throne of grace, because we have a great High 
Priest, who is passed into the heavens °. It would 
therefore have been premature, if this great distinc- 
tion of the Gospel had been anticipated in the Mo- 
saic dispensation. For it could never have been the 
sanction of that law : and if it had been introduced 
in any other form, it would naturally have been re- 
garded as a sanction. Thus would it have thrown a 
shade over the riches, the splendour, and the beauty, 
of the Gospel : since these are most conspicuous, 
when seen in contrast with the imperfections at- 
tendant on all the former stages in the progressive 
advancement of revelation. 

The observance of prayer as a religious exercise 
is manifestly supposed and recognised in the Penta- 

•^ Heb. iv. 14, 1.5. 1 fi. 



in the Pentateuch^ explained. 311 

teuch ; as must appear from the instances to which 
we have already adverted, and also from a variety 
of facts which occur to us in the narrative of that 
book. But still we find not in the writings of Moses 
any precept, declaratory of its general obligation ; 
nor any promise, that it should be offered with ef- 
fect to the worshipper. 

II. Our attention will in the next place be due to 
the doctrine of sanctification by the Holy Spirit. In 
the consideration of this subject also, we shall endea- 
vour to shew, that the principles already applied to 
the doctrines of a future state and of prayer, are si- 
milarly applicable, for the purpose of explaining the 
difference which exists between the old and new 
covenants, with regard to this doctrine also. 

The promise of the Holy Spirit, as an active 
power of sanctification in the heart of man, formed 
no part of the Law. This wiU appear, first, from 
an inspection of the Mosaic writings, in which that 
promise is not to be found. It wiU also appear 
from a reference to the prophet Jeremiah. The 
writings of that prophet predict the introduction of 
a new covenant in terms, which, according to the 
general opinion of Christian divines, can be applied 
only to the dispensation of the Gospel. He declares, 
that this covenant was to be different from the co- 
venant, which God made with the forefathers of his 
nation when^ he brought them up out of the land 
of Egypt. He proceeds to specify the points in 
which the difference would consist. Among these 
particulars the first is stated in these words : " I 
" will put my law in their inward parts, and write 

X 4 



312! Other instances of omission 

" it in their hearts ^." These words are plainly de- 
scriptive of those sanctifying graces, which, accord- 
ing to the terms of the evangelical covenant, the 
faithful were to derive from God's holy Spirit. This 
being stated, as a point of distinction between the 
Old and New covenants ; it is plain that the promise 
of which we speak could not belong to the former. 

The promise of a sanctifying Spirit belongs then 
to the Gospel : it did not belong to the Law. 

Shall we then say, that the sanctifying graces of 
God's Spirit were altogether withholden from all 
who lived under the Mosaic covenant? Certainly 
not : because, had this been the case, we should not 
have read, as we now do, of holy men, living under 
that Law, whose faith and piety were acceptable to 
God. To assert, with regard to these characters, 
that the principle of sanctification was, or could be, 
derived from any other source than the Spirit of 
God ; can never be maintained by any but a Pela- 
gian. The true state of the case is explained with 
admirable clearness and brevity by bishop Bull: 
" The Spirit of God was given under the Law, but 
" not hij virtue of the Law ^" This divine aid was 
not a covenanted mercy belonging to the law of 
Moses, but a benefit derived to the subjects of that 
law, as other benefits also were, independently of 
any provisions which the Law contained. 

It must moreover appear, that the doctrine of 
sanctification was not unknown to the Israelites, 
and that God himself is spoken of, in the writings of 

^ Jer. xxxi. 33. 

» *♦ Sub lege quideni, at non ex lege." Harm. Apost. Diss. II. 
c. xi. §. 4. 



in the Pentateuch, explained, 313 

Moses, as the author of sanctification in man. The 
necessity of sanctification is plainly set forth, when 
the circumcision of the heart is required ^ : and the 
nature of it is explained by the practical effects, 
with a view to which that spiritual circumcision is 
required. These practical effects are denoted by 
" fearing the Lord their God, by walking in his ways, 
" by loving and serving him with all their heart 
" and with all their soul, by keeping the command- 
" ments of the Lord and his statutes ^." And the 
work of sanctification is plainly attributed to God 
as its author. Such is the tenour of the following 
passages : " I am the Lord that doth sanctify you ^." 
" Sanctify yourselves therefore^ and be ye holy : 
" for I am the Lord your God. And ye shall keep 
" my statutes and do them. I am the Lord which 
" sanctify you>\" Let it not be said, that the 
sanctity here spoken of is merely ceremonial, in 
distinction from legal defilement : it is no other than 
that sanctity which consists in an impartial ob- 
servance of all the commandments of God, moral as 
well as ritual ; of those which govern the heart, as 
well as those which regulate the outward actions. 
This will be plainly seen from those descriptions of 
it, which are further conveyed in the following pas- 
sages : " That ye may remember, and do all my 
" commandments, and be holy unto your God^." 
" And the Lord thy God will circumcise thine 

* Deut. X. 16. 

" Ibid. X, 12, 13. These verses relate to the same subject 
with that last referred to. 

^ Exodus xxxi. 13. >' Levit. xx. 7, 8. 

^ Numb. XV. 40. 



314 Other instances of omission 

" heart, and the heart of thy seed, to love the Lord 
" thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy 
" soul *." Lastly, it appears, that the obligation of 
holiness was grounded on the duty of imitating the 
divine perfections : the pattern, thus proposed to 
them, plainly conveying the notion of a spiritual, 
and not merely an external and ceremonial, sanc- 
tity. " Ye shall be holy," says God to his people ; 
*' for I am holy ^." Why then was not the promise 
of this blessing annexed to the Mosaic covenant? 
Plainly because that covenant contained in itself no 
efficacy towards the attainment of it, and because 
the blessing itself flows only from the atonement 
and intercession of Christ. " I will pray the Fa- 
*' ther," says our Lord, " and he shall give you 
" another Comforter ^." " It is expedient for you 
" that I go away : for if I go not away, the Com- 
" forter will not come unto you ; but if I depart, I 
" will send him unto you ^." 



•' Deut. XXX. 6. 

^ Levit. xi. 44, 4b. The concurrence of various authorities, 
extremely different in character, sanctions the view which is here 
taken. Thus Maimonides gives the Rabbinical exposition of the 
last cited passage : " Supremus etenim gradus hominis est, ut 
" quam maxime fieri potest, Deo similis evadat, ita scilicet, ut ac- 
** commodemus vel conformemus opera nostra ad opera illius, 
*' quemadmodum sapientes nostri explicarunt in expositione ver- 
** sus illius, Suncti estate, quemadmodum ego sanctus sum.'' More 
Nevochim, pars i. c. 54. p. 90. ed. Basil. 1629. See also Spencer 
de Legg. lib. i.e. 7. §. 2, vol. i. p. 123. To these add the deci- 
sive authority of St. Peter : " As he which hath called you is holy, 
*' so be ye holy in all manner of conversation ; because it is writ- 
'• ten, Tic ye holy ; for I am holy."' 1 Epist. i. 15, 16. 

' John xiv. 16. '' John xvi. 7. 



in the Pentateuch, explained. 315 

Thus ought the three doctrines, of eternal life, 
of prayer, and of sanctification ; to be viewed in the 
same light, as so many striking marks of distinction 
between the old and new covenants. The benefits 
which these doctrines hold forth to mankind were 
enjoyed; and the doctrines themselves were, in a 
limited and qualified manner, entertained ; under the 
Law. But these benefits are no where explicitly 
promised in that institute ; because such promises 
belong exclusively, in their own nature, to the evan- 
gelical covenant, and stand upon no other founda- 
tion than the sacrifice of Christ. The principle thus 
laid down will derive both strength and illustration 
from an attentive regard to the following passage of 
the Epistle to the Hebrews ; where, speaking of the 
benefits derived from the priesthood and sacrifice of 
Christ, the apostle thus expresses himself. 

" But now hath he obtained a more excellent 
'' ministry, by how much also he is the mediator of 
*' a BETTER COVENANT, which was established upon 
" BETTER PROMISES. For if that first covenant had 
" been faultless, then should no place have been 
" sought for the second. For finding fault with 
" them, he saith, Behold, the days come, saith the 
" Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the 
" house of Israel and with the house of Judah : JVb^ 
" according to the covenant that I made with their 
*^ fathers in the day when I took them hy the hand 
" to lead them out of the land of Egypt ; because 
" they continued not in my covenant, and I re- 
" garded them not, saith the Lord. For this is the 
" covenant that I will make with the house of Israel 
" after those days, saith the Lord ; I will put my 



316 Other instances of omission 

" laws into their mind, and write them in their 
" hearts : and I will be to them a God, and they 
** shall be to me a people. And they shall not teach 
** every man his neighbour, and every man his bro- 
" ther, saying, Know the Lord : for all shall know 
" me, from the least to the greatest. For I will be 
" merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins 
" and their iniquities will I remember no more ^." 

We will conclude our view of this subject with 
the following remark. It will not be denied, that, 
agreeably to the concurrent descriptions of both 
prophets and evangelists, the coming of the Messiah 
was to be accompanied by an abundant and illus- 
trious manifestation of the glory of God. " The 
" glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh 
" shall see it together^?' This is the language of 
Isaiah, when predicting that event. '* I will fill this 
" house with glory, saith the Lord of hosts. The 
" glory of this latter house shall be greater than of 
" the former ?." These are the words of a later pro- 
phet, with regard to the second temple : which, 
though in the visible splendor and magnificence of 
its structure inferior to the former, was to be ho- 
noured by the personal presence of God manifested 
in the flesh. " Glory to God in the highest," was a 
part of the song of the heavenly choir who pro- 
claimed the advent of the Redeemer. We would 
ask, then, in what was this glory to consist ? It was 
not to be seen in the display of worldly greatness 

^ Heb. viii. 6—12. Jer. xxxi. 31—34. 

' Is. xl. 5. g Haggai ii. 7. f). 



in the Pentateuch , explained. 317 

and majesty, in the trophies of earthly warfare or 
the ensigns of temporal dominion. Doubtless we can 
understand by it nothing else, than the glory of God 
reconciling the world to himself by the death of his 
Son, and dispensing his mercies to a fallen race 
through the means of that precious expiation. Of 
these mercies, eternal life is the end and the com- 
pletion : the promise annexed to prayer, and that 
of the sanctifying Spirit, are instrumentally ne- 
cessary, in order to the attainment of that blessed 
consummation. All these blessings belong strictly and 
exclusively to the evangelical covenant. Here they 
are covenanted mercies. But they could not, con- 
sistently with the truth of the Christian scheme, be- 
long to any other covenant. Had they been at- 
tached to any foregoing dispensation, how could the 
glory of God have been eminently manifested in the 
Gospel? How could the prophetic declarations on 
this subject have been verified? Standing as they 
do, connected with the person and the dignity of 
the Lamb of God, they shew forth the holy attri- 
butes of the Deity in a blaze of glory almost too 
bright for the mental eye to endure. Suppose the 
contrary had be^n the case : would not the carnal 
mind then exult with insolence, if, when called upon 
to shew the manifestation of God's glory in the per- 
son of Christ, we had nothing further to allege, than 
the outward circumstances of abject humiliation 
which were attendant upon the man of sorrows, to- 
gether with the bloody and ignominious cross, which 
was a stumblingblock to the Jews, and to the 
Greeks foolishness ? How is the case altered, when 
we are able to point to that cross as a fountain 



318 Other instances of omission ^ c^c. 

opened to a polluted world for sin and uncleanness ; 
and to the blood which pours down it, as the means 
provided by God of conveying his most inestimable 
mercies to mankind, in the acceptance of their 
prayers, the sanctification of their souls, and the free 
gift of eternal life ? Surely, in this view, Christ cru- 
cified may justly be regarded as the power of God, 
and the wisdom of God, to them that believe : but 
this could never have been so manifest, if the pro- 
mises of which we are speaking had existed in con- 
nexion with any former covenant or dispensation. 



Hai'mony of divine revelation, (§c. 319 



CHAPTER VIIL 

THE HARMONY OF DIVINE REVELATION INSISTED ON AS AN 
EVIDENCE OF ITS TRUTH. 

*Opa,v ea-Ti %cot; (piKa, Kai crvy^cpavcc eXaXTjcav 'iravr€<; ol 'Kpo<p'^ra,iy 'EN I 
KAI TO ATTO HNETMATI EK^nNHSANTED. Theopli. ad Au- 
tolycum, II. 35. 

W E have now terminated our inquiry into the 
subject originally proposed. But we should be cul- 
pably wanting in our endeavours, however humble, 
to do justice to that subject, if we failed to notice 
some important consequences resulting from the past 
examination. These consequences are adapted, part- 
ly to corroborate the general evidence of revealed 
religion ; and partly to break the force of objections 
which are advanced against it. 

If we take a general view of all those several 
communications of the Divine will which are re- 
corded in the sacred volume, we cannot fail to re- 
cognise a character of harmonious consistency per- 
vading the various dispensations and successive 
epochs of revealed religion. In that unity of design 
and concurrent tendency which characterise these 
several dispensations ; we discover the strongest evi- 
dence to prove the Unity of their Author. At the 
same time, the wonderful display which shines 
throughout them, of transcendent wisdom, holiness, 
foreknowledge, providential arrangement, benevo- 
lence, justice, and mercy ; together with the stu- 
pendous union of attributes, apparently irreconcile- 
able, but which are here exhibited as acting in 



820 Harmony of divine revelation 

concert for the good of mankind : this display, we 
contend, powerfully evinces the Divinity of that 
Author. 

" It is one argument amongst many," says an ex- 
cellent divine, " of the divinity of the holy Scrip- 

* tures, that these seemingly unconnected parts do 
' all yet unite in one great plan. Scattered like the 
' stars in the firmament of heaven, like them too 

* they are the parts of an harmonious system. The 
' designs of the Almighty are distinguished from 
' those of man, by being of an extent far beyond all 

* the powers of human execution. The work of re- 
' velation, taking its rise in the beginning of things, 
' advanced slowly through many ages towards its 
' accomplishment. Many were the agents commis- 
' sioned by heaven to labour in the progress of this 
' great work. And while each seemed to study only 
' his own times, and to be intent only on the exe- 
' cution of his own particular part, he was working 
' on the vast design of Heaven^ in concert with those 
' who had lived many ages before him, and with 
' those who were to arise in ages yet to come. No- 
' thing, therefore, could give consistency to the la- 

* hours of men thus situated in times and countries 
' the most remote from each other, and amongst 

* whom no human means of communication could 

* possibly lie open, but the guiding hand of Him who 
' 'knows the end from the beginning,' and before 
' whom the secrets of all future ages are unfolded, 

* conducting the whole, and leading each, unknown 
' to himself, to fill up his part of the immense 

* plan \" 

^ Rolheram's Essav on Faith, sect. 1 . 



msisfed on as an evklence of its- truth. 321 

The general principle, thus unfolded with such 
remarkable propriety of thought and elegance of 
language, will be clearly illustrated and powerfully 
confirmed by an examination of certain striking par- 
ticulars connected with the scheme of divine revela- 
tion. 

Consider ^:hen the remote distance from each other 
of those great events, which, during the vast inter- 
val between the fall of man and his redemption, con- 
cur together in harmonious and progressive move- 
ments, towards the accomplishment of one great de- 
sign. Consider also the distance from each other, of 
the many prophets and inspired teachers, whom God, 
in various ages, selected for the declaration of his 
will, with regard to that design itself, the interme- 
diate events, and the subordinate provisions, which 
related to it. At one distinguished epoch in the 
progress of the scheme, the lawgiver of Israel ap- 
pears as a chosen instrument in God's hand, of con- 
ducting a measure of the greatest importance to- 
w^ards the success of the general plan. This great 
prophet announces the commencement of the plan 
to have taken place about two thousand four hun- 
dred years before he was born, and the plan itself 
was to have its completion about fifteen hundred 
years after he was dead. He records, in the bless- 
ings delivered to the patriarchs, and by them to 
their children, several declarations relating to the 
ultimate purpose of divine mercy, which were sub- 
sequent to the first opening of the plan, and con- 
current both with that and with its final completion ; 
but which, as they were communicated before he 
was born, he never could have learned from personal 

Y 



322 Harmony of divine revelation 

knowledge. In agreement with these preceding de- 
clarations, a long succession of prophets, each in his 
respective time and station, acting in unison without 
the possibility of acting in concert, fulfil the parts 
allotted to them under the direction of God : each 
instrumental in arranging the intermediate stages of 
the progressive scheme ; each affording to his con- 
temporaries a prospective view of the intended mer- 
cy ; each describing the future redemption (with 
unequal measures of discovery, indeed, but) in cha- 
racters consistent both with those who went before 
and those who followed him ; each contributing his 
aid to confirm the faith of his posterity by the con- 
currence of his testimony. At length, in strict agree- 
ment with the earliest intimations and with every 
successive repetition of them, the plan is completely 
unfolded to our view in the person, the doctrines, 
the performances, and the sufferings, of our Re- 
deemer. Lastly, the apostles of Christ, and the 
early preachers of Christianity, publish to the whole 
world the way of eternal life : and their communi- 
cations differ from those of their predecessors, only 
in the fulness of discovery, and in displaying a fi- 
nished and completed view of that, which had here- 
tofore been announced in its course of preparation. 
Here everlasting righteousness is brought in : the 
vision and the prophecy are sealed up. 

Thus do all the sacred messengers of God, from 
the earhest to the latest time, concur in one illus- 
trious design. You do not discover one pulling down 
what another had built up. Later prophets do not 
contradict those who had gone before them. The 
fabric of revealed religion presents, indeed, a vary- 



insisted on as an evidence of its truth. 323 

ing aspect in different ages of the church ; but the 
variety is only such as indicates its gradual ad- 
vancement. The structure rises higher and higher 
in successive ages : but its progress and its com- 
pletion agree in every point with the original plan, 
and its foundation is the same, being established on 
the rock of ages. When the plan is brought to its 
perfection, then the ceremonial and political ordi- 
nances of the Mosaic law are taken away : but this, 
to use the similitude of a great writer, is only for 
the same reason that the scaffolding of an edifice is 
removed when the building is completed \ 

Every succeeding age in the gradual advance- 
ment of revelation lays open a more expanded view 
of truths which had been before declared. Subse- 
quent notices throw light upon those which had 
preceded them. Later communications are explana- 
tory of those which had gone before. Different ages, 
indeed, bring forth appointments of a character dis- 
tinct from those of foregoing times. Thus, one pe- 
riod is marked by the call of Abraham ; another by 
the giving of the Law ; another by the building of 
the temple. But all these various appointments are 
to be viewed as having ultimately one tendency and 
one reference. However insulated in appearance, 
however detached in time, they nevertheless act to- 
gether like the various limbs of the body, which ef- 
fect one harmonious movement because they are ac- 
tuated by one spirit. Every thing in its proper place 
and order tends to the same point, and performs 
its respective part, however subordinate, in establish- 

' Warburton. 
Y 2 



324 Harmony of divine revelation 

ing the authority, confirming the evidence, or pro- 
moting the effect, of the Divine counsels for the re- 
covery of fallen man. 

Revealed truth appears, indeed, in different ages 
of the world, to wear a different garb : but the truth 
itself is in substance the same, the difference con- 
sisting only in the vmequal measures in which from 
time to time it has been opened to our view. 

Justice and holiness are, at one period, the most 
prominent qualities in the character of the Deity : 
at another, these awful perfections are discovered to 
us harmoniously blended, after a most stupendous 
manner, with the endearing attributes of mercy, for- 
giveness, and love. But let the body of revelation 
be viewed as one entire plan, framed in the coun- 
sels of God before the foundation of the world : it 
will then appear, that the same attributes have been 
exerted throughout ; and that (not only in the ac- 
tual sacrifice of our Redeemer, but also in the eter- 
nal will of God) righteousness and peace have met 
together, mercy and truth have kissed each other. 

At one period in the progress of revelation, the 
final purpose of Divine grace appears shrouded un- 
der a veil of dark intimation : at another it is openly 
brought forward to our view in the daylight of the 
Gospel. But the same unchanging purpose is con- 
stantly pursued from the first to the last. Temporary 
provisions are accommodated to changing circum- 
stances, but still with a constant reference to the 
same design. 

The knowledge imparted in the Old Testament 
respecting the recovery of fallen man, is far less 
abundant than that conveyed in the New : but to 



insisted on as an evidence of its truth, 325 

the full extent of those limited discoveries which it 
affords, the former most exactly harmonizes with the 
latter. 

In both these grand divisions of sacred writ, the 
same natural relation between God and man is uni- 
formly taught : the same glorious perfections are 
ascribed to the former, the same helpless and guilty 
condition to the latter. In both, the same right of 
satisfaction for sin is asserted respecting the Cre- 
ator : the same want of forgiveness and destitution 
of merit, respecting the creature. In both, obedi- 
ence is laid down as the necessary condition of Di- 
vine favour : in both it is declared to be void of all 
meritorious efficacy. 

The characteristic differences of the various dis- 
pensations are such as constitute the distinction be- 
tween a scheme of religion in its progress to per- 
foction, and the same scheme after it hath attained 
perfection. Those truths of the Gospel which are 
unrevealed in the Law and the prophets, are kept 
secret, only till the fulness of time shall come for the 
seasonable and effectual disclosure of them. 

The whole economy of revelation gives its testi- 
mony to this truth : that the counsels of God are, 
like his holy and perfect nature, the same yesterday, 
and to-day, and for ever. On the ground of this 
principle we have reason to infer, that the varied 
aspect and diversified provisions which we find in it, 
had a constant reference to an uniform design and 
an unchanging purpose ; and that they were accom- 
modated to time and circumstances, so as to com- 
municate the most effectual and extensive success to 
that purpose, as it is set forth to us in the Gospel. 

Y 3 



226 Harmony of divine revelation 

Thus doth the whole body of scripture, however 
detached may be its parts, however varied its tem- 
porary and relative provisions, exhibit to the view 
one united system. This harmonious character is 
principally seen, in the concurrent reference of all 
its parts to the plan of our redemption through the 
sacrifice of Christ. Every separate portion of re- 
vealed religion has a connexion, nearer or more dis- 
tant, with this leading purpose. Each distinct pro- 
vision is subordinate and subservient to this. It is 
either auxiliary to it, or illustrative of it. Redemp- 
tion is the great centre-point of scriptural instruc- 
tion : every other Divine ordinance either meets in 
this point, or diverges from it. The doctrine of the 
Atonement is the great and leading doctrine of the 
Bible from beginning to end. This was darkly in- 
timated to fallen man, before he was expelled from 
the abode of innocence and bliss. The sacrifices of- 
fered by the faithful immediately after the fall, were 
in unison with this intimation. Abraham rejoiced 
in it when he saw the day of Christ afar off. The 
bloody ordinances of the Levitical law shadowed 
out the same truth in emblem and mystery. The 
sweet psalmist of Israel spoke a congenial language, 
when he painted the sufferings of him who was to 
be the Saviour of men. In strains of mingled sad- 
ness and triumph, the prophetic song announced the 
man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, who was 
bruised for our transgressions and wounded for our 
iniquities : and it bore also, in different ages of the 
Jewish church, a varied, yet harmonious, testimony, 
to the great Personage ill whom that truth was sub- 
stantially verified. The latest prophet under the 



insisted on as an evidence of its truth, 327 

Law, and the immediate harbinger of the Messiah, 
proclaims the same truth, when he announces Christ 
as the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of 
the world. Christ himself declares the doctrine, he 
verifies, and bears witness to it, in his death. The 
apostles proclaim our Redeemer, as him whom God 
hath set forth to be a sacrifice and propitiation for 
the sins of the whole world. The holy martyrs un- 
der the agonies of death and torture testify the 
same. Nor does the attestation of it stop here. After 
the church militant hath maintained it throughout 
every stage of its warfare, the church triumphant 
takes up the heavenly theme, resounding it in 
hymns of exultation and praise to the end of time. 
It was first heard in the terrestrial Eden, and it 
ceases not to be heard in the songs of the blessed 
spirits who inhabit the celestial paradise : " Worthy 
" is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and 
" riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honour, and 
" glory, and blessing ^." 

The argument we are now pursuing will not be 
seen in its due force and extent, unless we particu- 
larly advert to the method, which was adopted by 
God, of communicating to the world the last and 
most glorious revelation of his will. 

We need not expatiate on a subject so well un- 
derstood as the excellence of the Gospel. If we say, 
that in the sublimity of its doctrines ; in its awful, but 
endearing, views of the Divine nature ; in its disco- 
veries of the relation subsisting between man and 

k Rev. V. 12. 
Y 4 



328 Harmony of divine revelation 

his Maker ; in its tendency to subdue the corruption 
of the soul, to heal the disorders, to allay the mi- 
series, to purify the enjoyments, to refine and exalt 
the happiness, of human life : if we say, that in these 
respects it infinitely transcends every system of in- 
struction which ever existed in a state of separation 
from its influence, we assert only that which can- 
dour will never venture to dispute. 

Look then to the character and the qualifications 
of those by whom this religion was promulgated to 
the world. Were they, in genius, in culture^ and in 
learning, equal to Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle? 
Far from it. Yet if we contrast together the doc- 
trine of these renowned pagans and that of the fish- 
ermen of Galilee ; if we weigh their comparative in- 
fluence in promoting the good, and counteracting 
the evil, of life : we must pronounce the value of 
the former to be wholly contemptible. Infidelity will 
waste its efforts and its ingenuity in vain, while en- 
deavouring to maintain the possibility, that a doc- 
trine, such as Christianity, may have oAved its intro- 
duction to the sagacity and contrivance of man. So 
just is that observation of the apostle, "We have 
" this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excel- 
" lency of the power may be of God, and not of 
"usV 

Here we discern only the commencement, or first 
stage, of a series of insurmountable difl^iculties with 
which Deism has to contend, while endeavouring to 
account for the existence of Christianity independ- 
ently of God : and these difficulties we shall find 



1 2 ( 



insisted on as an evidence of its truth, 329 

continually enlarging their magnitude, as they pro- 
gressively occur to our observation. Let us take a 
distinct view of them, as they stand connected, in 
succession, with each other. 

We have first to consider the impossibility, that a 
system of doctrine, so sublime and beneficial as the 
Gospel, should have been the child of human in- 
vention ; and especially, that it should have sprung 
from the invention of those who, for the most parts 
were wholly unqualified by talents and attainments 
for the instruction of their fellow-creatures. Se- 
condly ; if this were accounted for, another difficulty 
presents itself in the attempt to explain, how any 
teacher of such a system should be able to maintain 
throughout a perfect consistency with himself in the 
doctrines which he taught. Nor let this difficulty 
be lightly thought of. It is observed, if I mistake 
not, by one of the ancient fathers, that among all 
the pagan pliilosophers, you cannot allege the name 
of a single individual who was consistent with him- 
self. If this were the case with their systems, how 
impossible is it, when we regard, on the one hand, 
the various and comprehensive nature of the doc- 
trines taught in the Gospel ; and on the other, the 
qualifications of each individual teacher by whom 
those doctrines were delivered ; to account, on the 
supposition of any human means, for that consist- 
ency which we find in it ™. But this difficulty be- 



'" " Quis posset indoctus apta inter se et cohaerentia fingere ; 
" cum philosophoriim doctissimi, Plato, et Aristoteles, et Epicii- 
" rus, et Zenon, ipsi sibi repugnantia et contraria dixerint. Hcec 
" pM enim menda<Aornm natura, ut cohcerere non possint. Illoruin 



330 Harmony of divine revelation 

comes greatly aggravated at the next step of our 
progress. We have to consider, that the Gospel was 
promulgated not by one, but by many persons ; by 
the twelve apostles, St. Paul, and a great multitude 
of other evangelists and preachers. How could 
these, without the aid of infallible direction, have 
been consistent with each other? The wisdom of 
man could never have produced an agreement, among 
instructors so numerous, in their expositions of a 
doctrine so comprehensive. But should it even be 
asserted, in contradiction of reason and possibility, 
that the primitive teachers of our religion might 
have themselves excogitated the system of truths 
which they published to the world ; and that each 
of them might have taught that system with a con- 
currence of doctrine so exact and uniform, as never 
to betray the least inconsistency with either himself 
or his many associates : it then remains to account 
for the correspondence and harmony of their doc- 
trine with those anterior revelations which were 
preparatory to it. For it is to be remembered, that 
this correspondence was strikingly realized as to 
many particulars, which lay beyond the influence of 
their control. Lastly, it remains to be explained, 
how the messengers of those antecedent revelations 
could have framed their discoveries to an agreement 
with that mysterious and wonderful economy, which 
was to take place, at an age so remote as to baffle 
their calculations, and under circumstances totally 



•• autem [sc. apostolorum] traditio, quia vera est, quadrat undique, 
** ac sibi tola consentit ; et ideo persuadet, quia constanti ratione 
'* suffulta est." Lact. Div. Inst. v. 3. 



insisted on as an evidence of its truth, 331 

independent of their knowledge and their will. The 
Law contained the pattern of those heavenly things 
which the pregnancy of time was destined to bring 
to light in the Gospel. The Law contains no pro- 
mise of eternal life : the Gospel does contain that 
promise. Herein is seen the harmony of the two 
economies, the silence of the former with the de- 
clarations of the latter : for the former provided not 
the sacrifice of a Redeemer, as a way of reconcilia- 
tion between God and man ; and the latter assures 
us, that eternal life is in no other way to be obtained. 
The Gospel sets forth no other name through which 
we can be saved, but only the name of Jesus Christ, 
the promised Messiah : and the Law gives no hope 
of a future life but that which stands connected 
with the prospect of his advent. Let it be remem- 
bered, that Moses was acquainted with the doctrine 
of a future state ; that he must have known its im- 
portance ; that he, in common with other lawgivers, 
must have felt the necessity of its influence towards 
the government of his people : and yet, in the code 
which he delivered to the Israelites, the sanction of 
future rewards and punishments is nowhere pro- 
posed as a motive to obedience. Of this striking 
omission, no other reasonable explanation can be 
given than the following. He could not introduce 
it without violating the consistency of revealed re- 
ligion, and contravening that eternal purpose re- 
specting the redemption of man, which was not to 
be fully disclosed till many ages after his death. 
Thus, the correspondence of the two covenants 
evinces the Divine origin of both. The omission of 
a future state in the one, and the discovery of it in 



332 Harmony of divine revelation^ &^c. 

the other, concur to illustrate the constancy of the 
Divine counsels : and both the omission and the 
discovery concur to prove, that the power of an 
endless life belongs to the priesthood of Christ, and 
not to the ministry of Moses or the covenant of 
Sinai. 



Want of antiquity and univet\mlity, (§<?. 333 



CHAPTER IX. 

THE WANT OF ANTIQUITY AND UNIVERSALITY IN THE 
SCHEME OF REVELATION, CONSIDERED. 

Kara Kai^ov; oiKOVOuei ra rov kocti^ov Trpa-y/xara o ©eo^', i.K aizaiTei to 

evXcyov. Orig. cont. Cels. vi. 79. 

JtSUT that which has now been insisted on as af- 
fording an evidence of truth, has also been selected 
as a topic of objection : and the objection thus ad- 
vanced has so near a connexion with the leading sub- 
ject of this treatise, that the purpose of our inquiry- 
would not be satisfied without an examination of it. 
Why, it is said, was not the whole plan of our 
redemption laid open from the earliest times ? Why 
was not the remedy held forth, as soon as the ma- 
lady had begun to operate ? The Gospel professes to 
be designed for the recovery of fallen man : why 
then was it not discovered to him immediately after 
the fall? Why are the communications of Divine 
grace dispensed with such a sparing hand? The 
wants of human nature have called aloud for them 
in every age which has elapsed since the creation : 
why then were they kept back from the old world, 
and bestowed exclusively within the last two thou- 
sand years? 

This objection has been frequently alleged in 
every age since the first erection of the Christian 
church ". A modern deistical writer appears to re- 
gard it with peculiar pride and self-complacency : 

" See Orig. cont. Cels. iv. 7. and Arnob. adv. Gen. ii. 63. 



ff^ant of antiquity and universality 

since he expresses so strong a confidence of its 
value, as to be willing to rest the whole cause of 
infidelity upon it alone ^. Let us see how much it 
is worth. 

Before, however, we enter on a distinct and par- 
ticular consideration of it, there is one general ob- 
servation which will not be undeserving of regard : 
because it applies in common to this and to many 
other objections, which are framed by the ignorance 
of man, on a view of those difficulties which are, in 
the nature of things, necessarily inherent in a scheme 
of revealed religion. 

If a system of religious faith be offered to our ac- 
ceptance, it is reasonable to expect satisfactory evi- 
dence of its authority. But it is quite unreasonable 
to demand a clear explanation of every circumstance 
connected with the mode of its introduction ; as for 
instance, why one time of giving it was preferred to 
another? or, why it was disclosed gradually, and 
not all at once ? If such circumstances involve no 
contradiction to any rational principle, we ought to 
rest satisfied. They may transcend the grasp of our 
intellect, they may lie beyond the appointed sphere 
of its exercise : but this ought to give no offence to 
our pride, since it is a necessary consequence of the 
difference between an infinite and a limited mind; 
that is, between the Creator and the creature i". 

° Quoted by Law. Considerations on the Theory of Religion, 
p. 42. 

p *' Nihil inter Deum lioniinemque distaret, si consilia et dis- 
" positiones illius majestatis 'aeternai cogitatio assequeretur hu- 
•' mana." Lact. Div. Inst, i, J. E* t<< tout&'v (TKovovfAevoi ^Bacravov 



in the scheme of revelation, considered, 335 

While the former shall surpass the latter, the opera- 
tions of Supreme Wisdom will of necessity be un- 
measurable by the scale of human inteUigence. Let 
us consider, on the one hand, the boundless compre- 
hension of the Divine wisdom and knowledge : let 
us reflect on that unHmited field of contemplation 
which Hes open to the Deity ; embracing all the pos- 
sibilities, relations, and dependencies, of things in the 
universe both of matter and spirit, and thence af- 
fording the selection of means for the accomplish- 
ment of the Divine counsels. Then, again, let us 
advert to the narrow extent of our own knowledge, 
the restricted sphere of our observation, and the li- 
mited capacities of our reason. How little of that 
knowledge, on which the Divine decrees are framed, 
lies open to our view ! How little of it is our mental 
vision strong enough to embrace ! Shall we then ex- 
pect, that every proceeding of an Infinite Mind 
should be intelligible to us ? Shall we question the 
wisdom of such proceedings, when we cannot discern 
it ? Let us remember that God is in heaven, and we 
on earth : let us remember the station that we fill, 
and the sentiments that become it ; the majesty of 
our Creator, and the reverence which it claims from 
us. " Who," says the prophet Isaiah, " hath mea- 
" sured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and 
" meted out heaven with the span, and compre- 
" hended the dust of the earth in a measure, and 
" weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in 
" a balance ? Who hath directed the Spirit of the 



Platonia Timseus. 



336 Want of antiquity and n7iiversality 

" Lord, or being his counsellor hath taught him ? 
" With whom took he counsel, and who instructed 
*' him, and taught him in the path of judgment, 
" and taught him knowledge, and shewed to him 
" the way of understanding ^ ?" 

" There is no searching of the understanding of 
*" God ^" says the same eloquent prophet. It is im- 
possible that any creature ; and especially that one 
who belongs to the lowest order of rational crea- 
tures ; should embrace that infinite range of know- 
ledge which lies open to the Supreme Intelligence, 
or form any conception of those endless possibilities, 
arrangements, and combinations, from which good 
or evil may eventually predominate. That which 
seems to us to be good may, in its ultimate ten- 
dency and in its most extended operation, prove to 
be evil: that which seems to us evil may, on the 
same enlarged view, prove to be good ; because we 
judge from the knowledge of a small part^ in a case 
where we cannot judge correctly without a know- 
ledge of the whole. Would the feeble lamp that 
guides your steps amidst thick surrounding dark- 
ness, enable you to estimate the wise and harmo- 
nious contrivance of this earth ? How much less 
then, circumscribed as you are with regard to the 
region of knowledge, and restricted as to your 
powers of judgment and observation, shall you be 
able to estimate the proceedings of an Infinite Mind, 
whose counsels are framed, on a view of circum- 
stances which are hidden from your sight, and on 
principles which your faculties cannot entertain ! 

Let us remember then, that the dispensations of 

^1 Is. xl. 12—14. ' Ibid. 28. 



in the scheme of revelation, considered. 337 

any religion which comes from God are framed ac- 
cording to a perfect wisdom and an universal know- 
ledge : they must therefore of necessity be unac- 
countable in many particulars to a being, in whom 
the gifts of wisdom and the opportunities of know- 
ledge are restricted within narrow limits. Hence 
will difficulties be necessarily inherent in every sys- 
tem of true religion : even those difficulties on 
which, as its favourite topics, infidelity delights to 
expatiate. This is a necessary consequence of the 
relation in which we stand to God ; whose provisions 
for our welfare will be framed agreeably to his own 
perfections, his unbounded knowledge and wisdom, 
and not accommodated to the measures of intellec- 
tual power and excellence which he hath commimi- 
cated to us : since an adaptation of those provisions 
to our weakness would be only compromising our 
happiness to gratify our pride, and would at once 
cut off all exercise of that humility which is the 
appropriate virtue of the rank we occupy among 
created beings. And if difficulties be, according to 
the nature of things, necessarily inherent in a true 
revelation ; it must follow, that the total absence of 
such difficulties in a scheme of religion, would, ab- 
stractedly considered, be so far from affording any 
just recommendation of it, that it would on the con- 
trary yield a strong presumption against its autho- 
rity and truth. However then, to the hasty view 
of an inconsiderate mind, the want of universality 
in a scheme of revealed religion may appear to mili- 
tate against its authority ; still, if the foregoing con- 
sideration be allowed its due weight, it will be found 
impossible to prove, but that the time and maimer 

z 



338 Wa7it of antiquity and universality 

of its introduction, and all other circumstances con- 
nected with it, may have been so ordained, as to 
impart to that scheme the most extensive and bene- 
ficial effect of which it was capable. And when we 
reflect on that wonderful manifestation of mercy to 
fallen man, of which the characters are so conspicu- 
ously traced in the Gospel, we have the most abun- 
dant reason to rest our minds in a firm but humble 
conviction, that they actually have been so ordained; 
and that as to this, as well as all other particulars, 
*' the present system of the world is the very best 
" that could be with regard to the mind of God in 
" framing it ^" 

Thus much in general, with regard to all objec- 
tions of a character similar to that which we have 
more particularly in view. We will now proceed to 
a distinct examination of that specific objection it- 
self. 

Let us suppose then, that the Gospel had pos- 
sessed that antiquity and universality the want of 
which is here objected to it. It remains that we 
should inquire, whether, on this supposition, it would 
have stood on a ground more favourable than it now 
does to the attainment of the objects it has in view. 

There are but two ways in which the fact here 
supposed could have been realized. In order that 
we may justly estimate the force and value of the 
ol)jection, let us examine them both. 

First then let us suppose, that immediately after 
the fall of man, the Gospel, in all its present fulness 

' Abj). Kiii^, Oiioin of Evil, \). 121. ed. 173J). 



in the scheme of revelation, considered. 339 

and clearness of discovery, as a covenant of recon- 
ciliation with God through the blood of Christ, had 
been prospectively offered to our first parents vi^ith 
a view to its universal diffusion among their poste- 
rity. Thus promulgated, how can you be sure that 
it w^ould have been universally embraced? For 
nothing less than universality will satisfy your de- 
mands. Would you have had some divine appoint- 
ment, by virtue of which its reception should have 
been in every case a necessary effect of its being 
made known? If so, your objection amounts to 
much the same thing as if it were asked, Why did 
not God create man a machine, to be actuated only 
by a physical and necessary impulse, not a rational 
and moral determination ? For it is surely nothing 
less than an absurdity and a contradiction, to ima- 
gine a necessity of embracing that which men are 
free to embrace or not. The course of our future 
observations will lead us to shew, that in this case, 
the reception of revealed religion would, if we may 
reason from the natural and ordinary course of hu- 
man affairs, have been even more limited than it 
^now is. But let us suppose the contrary: let us 
suppose that true religion, thus made known to 
mankind, had been universally embraced. Then 
consider what would have been the natural conse- 
quence. The pretensions of our Redeemer, at the 
appointed time of his appearance upon earth, would 
have been universally acknowledged^ and his person 
would have been regarded with love and reverence 
by all the sons of men. Now the redemption of 
man is effected through the sacrifice of the death of 
Christ : and the pride, the malice, the cruelty, and 

z 2 



34)0 Want of antiquity and universality 

wickedness, of men, are the instruments which God 
permitted to work for the infliction of that death. 
How then could the appointments of divine grace 
and providence, such as they are now made known 
to us, and such as we believe to have originated in 
the dictates of infinite wisdom and goodness : how, 
I say, could such appointments have been carried 
into effect consistently with the supposition, that 
the Messiah had been universally acknowledged and 
adored on his first appearance in the flesh? This 
reasoning will be found to concur with the language 
of scripture : " We speak the wisdom of God in a 
" mystery, even the hidden wisdom, which God or- 
" dained before the world unto our glory : which 
" none of the princes of this world knew : for had 
" they hnown it, they would not have crucified the 
" Lo7'd of glory ^." 

Secondly, The only remaining supposition on 
which the objection can be entertained is the fol- 
lowing. We must imagine, then, that the whole 
of the Gospel ; embracing not only its doctrine, but 
also the facts with which that doctrine is insepara- 
bly connected ; had been made known to our first 
parents in order to its subsequent diffusion among 
their posterity. We must also imagine, that, pre- 
viously to the communication of such knowledge, 
the facts themselves, on which the doctrine of Chris- 
tianity is grounded, had actually taken place : that 
is to say, that the Son of God had appeared in the 
flesh ; that he had accomplished our redemption by 
the sacrifice of himself; that he had afforded to 

' I Cor. ii. 7, 8. 



in the scheme of revelation, considered. 341 

mankind the knowledge and the benefit of all those 
means of reconciliation with God, which, as the 
Gospel informs us, were eventually conferred by his 
ministry. 

This hypothesis is harsh in the extreme. The 
difficulties inherent in it are so many and so great, 
that the mind cannot entertain the possibility of its 
being realized in a manner worthy of the Divine at- 
tributes. Let us however, for the sake of argument, 
pass over its perplexities, and admit its possibility. 
The question which remains for our examination is 
the following : Whether, on this view of things, the 
benefits of revealed religion would have been more 
extensively enjoyed among mankind, than has been 
the case under those provisions, which, according to 
the testimony of scripture, have actually been made 
for that purpose ? 

Let it then be observed, that the benefits arising 
from any scheme of religion must depend on its re- 
ception : and again, that its reception must depend 
on the evidence by which it is supported. We are 
to inquire then, whether, if the Gospel had been 
published at that early age which the present objec- 
tion supposes, the evidence of its truth would have 
been so powerful and convincing as it now is ? The 
contrary of this, if I mistake not, will plainly and 
necessarily follow from a fair examination of the 
question. In fact, Christianity would, by this early 
promulgation, have been weakened, as to all those 
principal sources from which the arguments in its 
favour are now derived. 

In the first place, it would have been deprived of 
the whole body of its external evidence : since the 

z 8 



342 Want of antiquity and universality 

uncivilized and unlettered state of the world in the 
infancy of the human race, admitted not the fram- 
ing and transmission of those records from which 
such evidence is derived. But you may say, why 
then were not the late and slow discoveries of art 
anticipated by a special ordinance of providence, in 
subserviency to a purpose so valuable, as that of 
handing down the historical proofs of a true reli- 
gion. " Such," to use the words of Origen with 
reference to another subject, " is the language of 
" those objectors to Providence, who frame to their 
** own minds an imaginary constitution of things, 
" differing from that which exists in the world ; and 
" who say, that the world would have been better 
" ordered if things had been thus and thus ap- 
" pointed. Where the suppositions of these men 
" are possible, they are detected upon examination 
" to be productive in their tendency of greater evil 
*' than what actually prevails in the world : and 
*' whenever this tendency does not belong to them, 
" it may then be shewn that their demands are in 
** the nature of things impossible "." Here the mat- 
ter is placed in its just and true light. If there be 
any thing faulty in the observation, it is, that the 
deteriorating tendency and impossibility of the 
schemes involved in such objections, are stated by 
this ancient father to be discoverable by us. Doubt- 

" TouTo We* jM.oi OjM-ojov eivat ra Xoya tocv avTi^iaracrcrovTay rrj irpovoia^ 
Kai ^laypachovrccv lavzoiq Irepa TTccpa ra ovra, Kut Xeyovrcov, on peXriov -/jv 
ei otrooq iiyj^v o /coct/aoij, ux; ^i€ypa\l/a,yi€v. 'Oirov fA^v yccp dvvara diaypoccpov- 
<riv, O.fiyyjj'JTOn yj^ipova naiovvreq, to ocrov af)^ lavToiq, [/ca<] ttj haypcccjiTi 
avTUVy Tov Koa-fiW o-nov 8e liOKOV<ri f^-rj yjapwa avai^ooypcccpeiv ray ovruv, 
aTio^eiKvvvrai ra rrj (frjosi a^vvxra l3ovX(,fJi.eyoi' uc; CKarepccc avrov<; Kcna- 
ykKa.<j-vwc tivai., Coiit. Cels. ii, (>8. 



in the scheme of revelation^ considered. 343 

less they are so, to the utmost extent of our reason 
and knowledge. But the same tendency, or the 
same impossibility, will certainly belong to them in 
many instances, where, by reason of our ignorance 
and weakness, they are undiscoverable to us : and 
we have a right to su23pose, for we cannot know 
the contrary, that one or both of them are inherent 
in the matter of this objection. You may however 
rejoin : The defect of external proof, thus occasioned, 
might have been compensated by a succession of mi- 
racles, to be brought forward at whatever time and 
place such evidence might be required. But if we 
suppose this frequency and this universal diffusion 
of miraculous evidence ; how, I would ask, would 
miracles then be distinguishable from natural effects ? 
If they were not thus distinguishable, how could they 
avail as evidence ? The very reason which renders 
a miraculous interposition necessary at particular 
seasons and for special purposes, militates against 
its perpetual introduction and its universal applica- 
tion. It is of the very nature of a miracle, not 
merely that it should be unaccountable to man : for 
that the ordinary operations of nature are : but that 
it should moreover be wonderful and extraordinary. 
If these latter qualities be taken from it, its essential 
character is destroyed, and its intention frustrated ^. 

^ It is justly observed by the great Bossuet, [Discours sur 
I'histoire universelle,] that "God/' in order to supply the evi- 
dence of his existence and power, " has manifested to mankind 
" a benignity worthy of himself in reversing, upon signal occa- 
*' sions, the order of nature, hij which men were wholly unaffected, 
'* because they were accustomed to it." If the objection we have 
now been considering were satisfied by a concession of its de- 
mands ; it will readily be seen, that mankind, being, as much ac- 

z 4 



344 Want of antiquity and universality 

Secondly, The truth of Christianity, as it is now 
proposed to us, is evinced by a long series of pro- 
phecies. These predictions extend successively 
through a period of about four thousand year§. 
Great part of them were delivered in dark and bar- 
barous times. The whole of them, those at least 
which foretell the first publication of the Gospel, 
were verified in an age of enlightened refinement ; 
when the cultured faculties of the human mind con- 
curred with the extension of learning and science, 
to facilitate a comparison between the prediction 
and the event. All these predictions bear a sepa- 
rate, but concurrent, testimony to the Messiah, enu- 
merating and describing the leading characteristics 
by which his person and dispensation should be 
known. Of this testimony the character of our 
Lord must have been deprived y : a species of testi- 

customed to miracles as to the regular movements of nature, 
would be as little affected by them. The following remark of 
bishop Conybeare will help to enforce our conclusion. " Let us 
*' see what must be the consequence of this demand of new mi- 
♦* racles. For the same reason that men refuse to receive the 
'* Christian religion, unless there are some new miracles wrought 
** to confirm it, they might refuse to receive it, unless they were 
»* themselves witnesses of those miracles : and since no one man 
*• hath reason to expect any extraordinary' methods of conviction 
'' beyond another, it follows, that miracles must be wrought for 
" the conviction of every individual person: and if such facts 
" should become so common, it is hard to determine how they 
** should be distinguished from mere natural effects ; for we judge 
** of what is natural or supernatural by observation and experi- 
" ence. So that this method of establishing religion, which hath 
*♦ been demanded, doth really tend to undermine and destroy it." 
Disc, on Miracles. 

V Ciraves's Lecturer, vol. ii. p. .'-{8.'). 



in the scheme of revelation, considered. 345 

mony, which, like a river expanding in its progress, 
gathers strength in proportion to the tract through 
which it extends. 

Thirdly, We are to have regard to the purpose of 
God in separating to his more especial service a pe- 
culiar people. This people was chosen as the depo- 
sitary of those divine oracles, which were to bear 
witness to the great Restorer of mankind and to 
estabHsh his authority. It was separated from the 
idolatries and superstitions of the heathen world, in 
order to maintain among men those notices of true 
religion, which were to qualify them for deciding 
on the pretensions of Christianity, and which, with- 
out such provision, would, in the natural course of 
things, have become wholly extinct. The welfare 
of this people was guarded, and their temporal af- 
fairs were governed, by a special miraculous provi- 
dence. Thus, through a long tract of ages, was the 
stamp of divine authority impressed on those pecu- 
liar religious institutions, which were designed to be 
auxiliary to the evidence, illustration, and effect, of 
the Gospel. By the same means also were creden- 
tials given to the prophets, whose predictions were 
to guide the judgments of mankind in estimating 
the pretensions of the Messiah. In fine, the Israel- 
itish church and polity, in every part of their eco- 
nomy, and through the whole extent of their dura- 
tion, were designed to be auxiliary to the Christian 
scheme of redemption. But whatever aid they af- 
ford in strengthening the evidence, and recommend- 
ing the claims, of the Gospel : of this aid the Gospel 
must necessarily have been deprived, if the mode of 
its introduction into the world had been framed 



346 Want of antiquity and universality 

agreeably to the views of those objections to whom 
we are replying. 

Fourthly, Let us turn our attention to the several 
detached communications of revealed truth, conti- 
nually enlarging through successive ages, but wear- 
ing a consistent character from first to last. Let us 
regard the unity of design pervading the varied 
economy of grace and providence, in all those ordi- 
nances and revelations which occur from the first 
promise to the promulgation of the Gospel. Let us 
consider the combined effect of so many separate 
rays of evidence meeting together in one splendid 
testimony to the unity and divinity of the Author of 
Christianity. This must have been wholly lost to 
the Gospel, if the publication of the Gospel had 
been immediately subsequent to the fall of man. 

Lastly, a principal disadvantage, accruing to the 
Gospel from this arrangement, would have consisted 
in the entire annihilation of its internal evidence. 

With a view to the proof of this assertion, I trust 
I shall make it appear, that, had the Gospel been 
published at that early date which this objection 
supposes, a general disesteem of its blessings, and 
scepticism as to its authority, would have naturally 
resulted from such an appointment. 

As the evidence of Christianity now stands, the 
excellence of the Gospel itself is much and justly 
dwelt upon in stating the proofs of its authority. 
Now this species of evidence derives its force and 
its illustration almost wholly from contrast. The 
character and effects of the Gospel cannot be fully 
understood and appreciated, without a comparative 
regard to those of other religious and moral systems ; 



in the scheme of revelation^ considered. 347 

and a reference to the state of mankind, as it is 
made known to us by history and observation, in 
those times and countries to which the benefit of 
revelation has been denied. Of this advantage the 
Gospel must, on the supposition of its primeval com- 
munication, have been destitute. If its light had 
been fully dispensed from the first, there could have 
been no previous experience of evils arising from the 
want of it. It must thus have been deprived of that 
support which it derives from a most powerful and 
convincing argument of its Divine original. The 
consequence is unavoidable : in proportion to the 
weakness of its evidence must have been the proba- 
bility of its rejection. 

It will be worth our while to bestow on this sub- 
ject a more extended consideration. If we survey, 
then, the general character of pagan theology ; we 
find a subject calculated to awaken the most painful 
emotions. Its wild absurdity and folly will prompt 
us to commiserate the degradation of the human 
mind : the cruelty of its worship, and the multitude 
of human victims who bled upon its altars, wiU ex- 
cite our horror : the loathsome obscenity interwoven 
with its essence, and frequently displayed in its 
public solemnities, will provoke our disgust : lastly, 
the evil passions and various detestable wickedness 
which it ascribed to its fictitious divinities, will dis- 
cover to us a system of faith, whose influence must 
have been destructive of the virtue and welfare of 
such as embraced it. These are the general features 
of polytheism, in all that variety of forms in which 
it hath prevailed throughout the world : these, in 
particular, are the features which it present-s, as it 



348 Want of antiquity and universality 

occurs to our notice in the politest nations of anti- 
quity. But these, it may be said, are but the gross 
errors of vulgar superstition ; and it is the boast of 
philosophy to liberate mankind from their slavery. 
Let us pass then from the temples of paganism, into 
her schools of wisdom and learning : let us see vs^he- 
ther we can discover in them a doctrine, more agree- 
able to the dignity of our nature, and more conducive 
to its happiness. It will be impossible for candour to 
assert, that any considerable improvement is to be 
found here. Philosophy was sometimes keen enough 
to discern the falsehood of an idolatrous creed, but 
it could not penetrate to the discovery of religious 
truth ^. It might clear away the rubbish of mytho- 
logy, but it could not explore the great foundations 
of human duty, of self-command, of piety to God, 
and benevolence to man. In the lessons which it 
taught, we find, at one time a vice exalted into a 
virtue ; at another, a virtue degraded into a vice. 
We find an avowal of almost every folly which ever 
crept into the human mind. We find a defence of 
almost every depravity which has infected the 
hearts, and every crime which has stained the prac- 
tice, of mankind. We find in its professors a double- 

'- " Multi philosopliorum religiones SListulerunt ; veriim autem 
*' scire, divinse est sapientiae. Homo autem per seipsiim perve- 
** nire ad banc scientiain non potest, nisi doceatiir a Deo. Ita 
" philowsophi, quod suninunii fuit humaiiee sapientiae, assecuti 
** sunt, ut intelligerent, quid non sit : illud assequi nequiverunt, 
" ut dicerent, quid sit. Nota Ciceronis vox est : Utinam tarn 
" facile vera invenire jjossem, quam falsa convincere. Quod quia 
*' vires humanae conditionis exccdit, ejus officii liicultas nobis est 
" altributa, (juibus tradidit Deus scientiam veritatis." Lact. Div. 
Inst. ii. 3. 



in the scheme of revelation, considered. 349 

dealing and deceitful way of treating their subjects, 
which renders it impossible to distinguish between 
their professed and their real opinions. We find 
them placing the obligations of duty on a wrong 
basis, and inculcating precepts which are wholly 
subversive of it. We find an infinity of jarring re- 
presentations respecting the nature of God, and the 
future destiny jof man. We listen in their turns to 
the Stoick, the Epicurean, the Peripatetick, the 
Platonist, and the Academic : and we find them all 
contradictory to each other, and each inconsistent 
with himself. On the whole, we find ourselves sur- 
rounded by darkness, and involved in perplexity, as 
to all those pursuits of truth and happiness in which 
a clear light and a straight path are most needfulto 
us. 

Having thus reviewed the religion and philosophy 
of paganism ; we must in the next place consider the 
practical influence of such persuasions and doctrines. 
The moral sentiments and practice of mankind 
will naturally be determined in their character and 
complexion by their religious tenets : their practice 
will correspond with their faith. If this undeniable 
principle be applied to the heathen mythology, it 
will guide us to a correct estimate of its tendency 
and value. " It cannot be difficult to explain the 
" reasons," says Lactantius, " why probity and jus- 
" tice are incompatible with the character of a hea- 
" then worshipper. For how can they abstain from 
" bloodshed, that worship gods who delight in it ? 
'' How shall they maintain filial piety, that worship 
" a Jupiter who dethroned and banished his father ? 
" or they respect the tenderness of their offspring. 



350 TVa?it of antiquity and universality 

* who offer their adoration to a Saturn, the devourer 
' of his children ? How shall they observe chastity, 
' who address their supplications to a goddess of 

* adultery, prostitution, and obscenity ? How shall 
' an abstinence from rapine and fraud be expected 

* in the worshippers of Mercury, in those who know 

* the history of his thefts, and who have learned 

* from his instruction, that such deceptions are not 
' to be hated as criminal, but admired as ingenious? 

How can you expect a government of their pas- 
' sions from those, who address their prayers to Ju- 
' piter, Hercules, Bacchus, Apollo, and other dei- 
' ties, whose flagitious impurities and abominable 
' lusts are noted in common fame, celebrated in 
' theatres, recorded in songs, and published in every 
' way that can promote their notoriety ? With these 
' examples before them, can virtue exist among 
' men ? It is impossible. Though nature had 

* formed them to virtue, they must have been led 
' into wickedness by the training and instruction of 

* their gods. For in order to gain the favour of 
' the God whom you worship, your conduct must 
' be such as that God delights in. Thus it is, that 
' the character of the God who is worshipped will 
' influence the life of his worshippers ; since the 

* imitation of God is the very essence of religious 
worshiper 

* Div. Inst. V. 10. The above reasoning is well illustrated in 
the following lines of Catullus : 

" Saepe etiam Juno maxima coelicolum 
" Conjugis in culpa flagravit cottidiana, 

'* Noscens omnivoli j)luriina furta Jovis. 
" At(|ui nee Divis homines componier aequum est." 1. 13.5. 
The chararter of the heathen niyth()h)gy is largely illustrated 



in the scheme of revelation, considered. 351 

This demoralizing tendency would naturally ope- 
rate, in its fullest force, on the bulk of those by 
whom the doctrines of paganism were professed. 
Nor will it be found, on inquiry, that its operation 
was wholly limited to the unreflecting multitude. 
Of such doctrines it might indeed be supposed, that 
they could support their credit only in minds quali- 
fied, by abject ignorance and stupid credulity, for 
their reception : but this is not the fact. We have 
historical proof, that some of the most eminent phi- 
losophers were not able to divest themselves of its 
influence. Socrates, we know, at his last hour, and 
with his last words, gave directions for an act, which 
evinced his mental compliance with the popular ido- 
latry of his country : and Xenophon, who framed his 
own conduct by the pattern of his master, was dis- 
tinguished through life by an adherence to similar 
observances ^. 

But though it should be admitted, that philosophy 
had strength enough to break the chains of prevail- 
ing superstition : it then remains for us to ask. What 
were the philosophers themselves with regard to the 
moral obligations of life ? How was the efficacy of 
their doctrine illustrated in their practice ? In the 
multitudes, indeed, who claim the honours of philo- 

by Plato, in agreement with the foregoing remarks, in the second 
and third books of his Republic. The general purport of his 
reasoning may be gathered from the following remark, which is 
extracted from that part of his work. Ov XeKreoi y \_ovroi ol Xoyoil 
ev Tvj TjueTepa iioXei. Ovie Xe/creoy veco aKOVOVTi, uq abiKccv ra ea-^ara, 
ofSev CIV BccvLLtxTTOv 'iTOiyj, aXXa hparj av or.^p Oecdi/ ol irpcoroi re koci jXiyicxToi. 

Lib. 2. 

^^ Ey<r€i3vji; re Kai (piXcdvTOc, koci lepeia diayvavai. tKavoq, kcci ^WKpaTV] 
"^rfAvo-ccq aKpi^uq. Diog. Laert. lib. II. in Xcn. 



352 JVa7it of antiquity and universaVitij 

sophy, a great diversity of feature and complexion 
may naturally be expected : but we shall invariably 
find the philosophical character far remote from 
every correct notion of virtue. Always does it ap- 
pear to us stained with pride, sensuality, avarice, or 
some disgraceful vice : in no case is it exempt from 
some considerable deviation from rectitude : in many 
instances, the secret retirements of the sage are pol- 
luted with the most flagitious and loathsome wick- 
edness : and oftentimes that wickedness does not 
even shun detection, nor wear the slightest veil of 
modesty or shame. 

These considerations will enable us to estimate 
truly the wretchedness of the human soul, when 
darkened by false religion, and perverted by false 
science. And it may surely be asserted, that if a 
favourable view of the human character, as it exists 
independently of revelation, could any where be 
found, it would present itself in the ancient nations 
of Greece and Rome: for there the powers of the 
human mind were highly improved by philosophy, 
literature, and the elegant arts of life. If the teach- 
ing of Socrates, and the writings of Cicero, were in- 
adequate to the moral improvement of mankind ; 
where could virtue be expected under advantages 
far inferior? What then must have been the condi- 
tion of by far the largest part of the world ? Go 
through the records of history and examine the re- 
ports of travellers : search the accounts of every 
age and people on which the lamp of revelation 
never shone : consider the state of those nations, 
whose atmosphere is still darkened by the clouds of 
superstition and idolatry : observe the folly and 



in the scheme of revelation, considered, 353 

wickedness of their religious faith ; the cruelty and 
impurity which is naturally engendered by it ; the 
debasing character of their worship, and the perni- 
cious tenets of their morality. It would carry us 
beyond all due limits to substantiate this point by a 
reference to particulars. But to cut the matter 
short : it is impossible that any well instructed 
mind should dispute the truth of this general posi- 
tion, That human nature, wherever it is found out 
of the pale of revelation, exhibits, through every 
tract of time and place, one uniform complexion of 
moral and intellectual debasement. 

Indeed, if we would rightly compute the powers 
of the human mind, and their efficacy in the pro- 
duction of happiness and virtue ; our estimate should 
be taken, not from the polite refinement of Athenian 
and Roman antiquity, but wholly and exclusively 
from the condition of those barbarous nations to 
whom we have in the last instance referred. The 
justice of this observation is placed in a forcible 
light by an elegant writer on the Internal Evidence 
of Christianity. " Mankind," says he, " have un- 
" doubtedly at various times from the remotest ages 
" received so much knowledge by divine communi- 
'' cations, and have ever been so much inclined to 
" impute it all to their own sufficiency, that it is 
" now difficult to determine what human reason un- 
" assisted can effect : but to form a true judgment 
" on this subject, let us turn our eyes to those re- 
'' mote regions of the globe, to which this superna- 
" tural assistance has never yet extended, and we 
" shall there see men endued with sense and reason 
" not inferior to our own, so far from being capable 

A a 



354 Want of antiquity and universality 

" of forming systems of religion and morality, that 
" they are at this day totally unable to. make a nail 
" or a hatchet : from whence we may surely be con- 
" vinced, that reason alone is so far from being suf- 
" ficient to offer to mankind a perfect religion, that 
" it has never yet been able to lead them to any de- 
'' gree of culture, or civilization whatever. These 
" have uniformly flowed from that great fountain of 
" divine communication opened in the east, in the 
" earliest ages, and thence been gradually diffused 
" in salubrious streams, throughout the various re- 
" gions of the earth. Their rise and progress, by 
" surveying the history of the world, may easily be 
" traced backwards to their source ; and wherever 
" these have not as yet been able to penetrate, we 
" there find the human species not only void of all 
" true religious and moral sentiments, but not the 
'' least emerged from their original ignorance and 
" barbarity ; which seems a demonstration, that al- 
" though human reason is capable of progression in 
" science, yet the first foundations must be laid by 
" supernatural instructions : for surely no other pro- 
" bable cause can be assigned, why one part of man- 
" kind should have made such an amazing progress 
** in religious, moral, metaphysical, and philosophical 
" inquiries ; such wonderful improvements in policy, 
" legislation, commerce, and manufactures, while the 
" other part, formed with the same natural capaci- 
" ties, and divided only by seas and mountains, 
" should remain, during the same number of ages, 
" in a state little superior to brutes, without govern- 
" ment, without laws or letters, and even without 
" clothes and habitations ; murdering each other to 



in the scheme of revelation, considered. 355 

" satiate their revenge, and devouring each other to 
" appease their hunger : I say no cause can be as- 
" signed for this amazing difference, except that the 
" first have received information from those divine 
" communications recorded in the Scriptures, and 
" the latter have never yet been favoured with such 
" assistance ^." 

As the current of disquisition has led to a citation 
from this writer, I cannot forbear to subjoin, as ge- 
nerally illustrative of our present subject, his obser- 
vations respecting the powers of reason and their 
efficacy, as they have been discovered under circum- 
stances more favourable to their beneficial operation. 
*' And as reason in her natural state is thus incapa- 
" ble of making any progress in knowledge ; so 
" when furnished with materials by supernatural 
" aid, if left to the guidance of her own wild imagi- 
" nations, she falls into more numerous and more 
" gross errors, than her own native ignorance could 
*' ever have suggested. There is then no absurdity 
" so extravagant, which she is not ready to adopt : 
" she has persuaded some, that there is no God ; 
" others, that there can be no future state : she has 
" taught some, that there is no difierence between 
" vice and virtue, and that to cut a man's throat, 
" and to relieve his necessities, are actions equally 
" meritorious ; she has convinced many, that they 
" have no free-will, in opposition to their own expe- 
" rience ; some, that there can be no such thing as 
" soul, or spirit, contrary to their own perceptions ; 
" and others, no such thing as matter or body, in 



'^ Jenyns's View of the Internal Evidences of the Christian Re- 
A a 2 



ligion. Conchision 



356 Want of antiquity and universality 

** contradiction to their senses. By analysing all 
** things she can shew, that there is nothing in any 
" thing ; by perpetual shifting she can reduce all 
" existence to the invisible dust of scepticism ; and 
*' by recurring to first principles, prove to the satis- 
" faction of her followers, that there are no princi- 
" pies at all. How far such a guide is to be de- 
" pended on in the important concerns of religion 
** and morals, I leave to the judgment of every con- 
" siderate man to determine. This is certain, that 
** human reason in its highest state of cultivation 
" amongst the philosophers of Greece and Rome, 
" was never able to form a religion comparable to 
" Christianity ; nor have all those sources of moral 
" virtue, such as truth, beauty, and the fitness of 
" things, which modern philosophers have endea- 
" voured to substitute in its stead, ever been effec- 
" tual to produce good men, and have themselves 
** often been the productions of some of the worst ^." 

It is now time to point out the bearing of the 
foregoing remarks on the conclusion they are de- 
signed to establish. 

It is by a reference to the condition of ignorant 
and superstitious nations, that the internal evidence 
of Christianity is made to appear in the lustre of 
Divine beauty and the power of irresistible convic- 
tion. When we contemplate the doctrines of that 
religion as they are delivered to us in scripture ; 
and the practical tendency of those doctrines as they 
are developed by experience : we have just reason 
to contend, that its original must have been very 

^ .Tenyns's View of the Internal Evidences of the Christian Re- 
ligion. C^onclnsion. 



in the scheme of revelation, considered. 357 

different from that to which we attribute the foolish 
and mischievous superstitions of paganism. Thus 
does the internal evidence of the Gospel derive its 
force and illustration from comparison. This species 
of argument, subsisting as it does in union with the 
strong fabric of external proof, has always been 
found a most effective instrument for the conviction 
of the unbeliever, and the establishment of the faith- 
ful. Now, on the supposition that our religion is 
what it professes to be, it is only reasonable to sup- 
pose that its Divine Author intended that its evi- 
dence should operate after the manner we have de- 
scribed. 

Let me then conclude this part of the subject 
with a few words of expostulation to those objec- 
tors, who complain of the Gospel on account of the 
late introduction and partial communication of its 
light. 

Religion, in order to its being embraced by a rea- 
sonable creature, must necessarily be supported by 
such evidence as may suffice for the conviction of a 
reasonable mind. This evidence, we contend, has 
actually been afforded in support of the Gospel, and 
stands connected with those means which the Di- 
vine Wisdom hath employed of bringing it into the 
world. That any other means would have been 
more extensively effectual to the purposes of Divine 
Grace and Mercy in the conversion of mankind, is 
a supposition you cannot indulge without folly and 
presumption : since it is a subject on which you are 
by no means qualified, either by the powers with 
which you have been gifted, or the knowledge you 
possess, to decide. The fabric of evidence on which 

A a 3 



358 JV^a?it of antiquity and U7iiversality 

Christianity is supported you now behold: but of 
this evidence no portion whatever could have ex- 
isted, if the knowledge of Christianity, in all the 
fulness of its discoveries, had been, from the earliest 
time, commensurate with the inhabited earth. Thus, 
had the scheme of revelation been framed agreeably 
to your notions of what is best, a much wider field 
of cavil and objection would have lain open to you, 
than that which you now enjoy. Indeed, these no- 
tions involve a contradiction in themselves. Had 
the Gospel been as early as you desire, it would not, 
in the natural course of things, have been so exten- 
sively diffused. For it must then have been desti- 
tute of that evidence which it now enjoys : and 
mankind would have shaken off its authority, if they 
had never been made acquainted with its excelletice 
by either the knowledge or the experience of those 
miseries which are connected with the want of it. 

The observation of the great Bossuet is highly just 
and pertinent to our present subject : " Before a Sa- 
** viour was given, it was necessary that mankind 
*^ should be brought by long experience to feel how 
" much they stand in need of such an assistance ^." 

" It is not easy to give us," says Rotherham, 
" who were born to the full enjoyment of the Gos- 
" pel, a strong and adequate idea of the value of a 
" blessing which we have always possessed. Its su- 
" periority was more clearly seen at the first ap- 
" pearance of Christianity, when it could be con- 
" trasted on one hand with the gross ignorance of 
" the vulgar heathen, and on the other with that 

'• Disc. Sur I'Hist. Univ. 



in the scheme of revelation, considered. 359 

" feeble lamp of philosophy, wherein was collected 
'/ however all the light that could be supplied from 
" all the sources of human reason. To a world in 
" this situation, to a people ' who walked in dark- 
" ness, and dwelt in the land of the shadow of 
*' death,' how astonishing must have been the first 
" appearance of this great light ! We who never 
'^ walked in darkness are less sensible of this effect ; 
" we see this great light without being struck by it, 
" because the full blaze of day did not burst all at 
" once around our understanding^." There are few 
reflecting and candid minds which will not acquiesce 
in this remark. We are apt to forget the magni- 
tude of those blessings we derive from the Gospel, 
because the miseries which have been felt in the ab- 
sence of it are so remote from our experience. How 
then could its excellence have been estimated or 
felt^ if there had never prevailed a reign of igno- 
rance and of false religion with which to contrast 
its benign influence? Yet this contrast it plainly 
could not have had, if it had been equally commu- 
nicated to every age and country. 

f Essay on Faith, sect. 6. 



A a 4 



360 TFant of antiquity and universality 
CHAPTER X. 

THE SAME SUBJECT PURSUED. CONCLUSION. 

Cum aperiret homini veritatem Deus, ea sola scire nos voluit, 
quae interfuit hominem scire ad vitam consequendam : quae 
vero ad curiosam et profanam cupiditatem pertinebant, reti- 
cuit, ut arcana essent. Quid ergo quseris, quae nee potes scire, 
nee si scias, beatior fias? Lactantii Div. Inst. ii. 9. 

W E might here terminate our reply to those, who 
allege the want of antiquity and universality in the 
Gospel as an objection to its truth. But this objec- 
tion is sometimes placed in a point of view so spe- 
cious and imposing, that it yields a source of triumph 
to the sceptic, and awakens an uneasy feeling in the 
mind of the believer. To counteract its pernicious 
tendency, being an object of unquestionable moment, 
may therefore justify the offering of a few additional 
remarks. 

The difficulty we propose to consider may be 
stated as follows. The Gospel, as its professors con- 
tend, is the only religious system which lays open 
the way of eternal life. The same Gospel denounces 
eternal misery on all by whom it is not embraced. 
Yet it is certain, that the largest portion of man- 
kind have in all ages been wholly unacquainted with 
it : and at this day, the professors of Christianity 
are few in comparison with the bulk of mankind. 
Those, moreover, who are ignorant of its doctrines, 
are so through no fault of their own. Those doc- 
trines have never been offered to their acceptance, 
and themselves have been placed beyond the reach 



in the scheme of revelation ^ considered, 361 

of revealed truth, by circumstances which were not 
subject to their control. What then is the future 
destiny of these subjects of involuntary ignorance 
and error? Are they to be consigned to hopeless 
and eternal misery? 

With regard to the difficulty thus stated, it is to 
be premised, that there are two classes of persons 
by whom it is^ or may be, advanced. These classes 
must be had in distinct and separate consideration 
in the reply which is framed to it. 

The first class is that of the philosophizing unbe- 
liever : who, taking the foregoing statement as his hy- 
pothesis, contends, that it exhibits either the power, 
the wisdom, or the goodness, of God, as circum- 
scribed within a narrow boundary, and the Deity 
himself as actuated only by a partial regard for the 
welfare of his creatures ; while he cannot admit any 
religious system to be worthy of the Divine nature, 
but that which ascribes to it unlimited perfection 
and universal benevolence. 

The second class is that of the sincere professor 
of the Gospel: who, though well grounded in the 
faith, is sometimes subject to an uneasy feeling when 
this subject occurs to his mind. Such a disposition 
may sometimes be startled by the difficulty of re- 
conciling this view of things with the sentiments 
which it cherishes respecting the Divine attributes. 
To suppose the occurrence of such feelings throws 
no imputation on the real piety of a Christian. On 
the contrary, to imagine that even the highest de- 
gree of religious conviction should be adequate to 
the exclusion of every painful and uneasy thought, 
seems to imply a supposition, that the struggles of 



362 Want of antiquity and universality 

faith may be over, and its final triumph achieved, on 
this side of the grave ; and thus to militate against 
the notion of a warfare, under which the Christian 
life is so frequently represented to us in scripture. 

Let us then proceed to examine the proposed dif- 
ficulty with a separate regard to the two descrip- 
tions of persons to whom we have adverted. And 
first with regard to the infidel objector. 

You allege that, according to the doctrine of the 
Gospel, the sentence of eternal misery must neces- 
sarily pass on all to whom that doctrine has not 
been made known. We deny then, that you have 
the warrant of scripture for this assumption ; which 
if you cannot maintain, whatever inferences you may 
draw from it to the prejudice of the Gospel, must 
necessarily fall to the ground. 

It is to be observed how^ever, that in order to the 
purpose of a satisfactory reply to this objection, it is 
wholly unnecessary to dogmatise on the contrary 
side to that which the objector has chosen. The ad- 
vocate for Christianity is not called upon to main- 
tain or avow the negative of the proposition. He is 
not required to state the true view of the case : it 
will suffice, if he can shew, that the assertion of his 
opponent is untenable, and that the ground which 
has been taken up cannot be maintained. 

That the Gospel denounces condemnation on all 
by whom its offers are rejected, is an awful but un- 
deniable truth. But whether this condemnation em- 
braces also those to whom its overtures were never 
propounded, is by no means equally manifest. On 
this point, the obligation of proof rests with those 
who maintain that it does. 



in the scheme of revelation, considered. 363 

" Go ye into all the world, and preach the Gospel 
" to every creature. He that believeth and is bap- 
" tized shall be saved ; but he that helieveth not 
" shall he damned^.'' Is it not justly questionable, 
whether in these latter words we are authorized to 
understand any thing further, than the sanction by 
which the preaching of the Gospel was enforced ? 
To those who had the Gospel offered to them, it 
was indeed no matter of choice what course they 
should pursue. They must either embrace it or pe- 
rish. But it is not clear, that any regard is had in 
this declaration, to such as might involuntarily con- 
tinue strangers to it : on the contrary, there is reason 
to suppose that such persons were not in contem- 
plation when the words were spoken. The former 
part of the citation delivers our Lord's injunction to 
preach the Gospel, with a description of the persons 
to whom it was to be preached : Go ye into all the 
world, and p7^each the Gospel to every creature. 
Is it not then natural to interpret the latter di- 
vision of it, as properly applying to those only who 
were the subjects of the former, and to whom the 
Gospel would actually be preached? He that he- 
lieveth and is haptized shall he saved ; hut he that 
helieveth not shall he damned. 

Let the following words of our Lord be duly con- 
sidered. " God sent not his Son into the world to 
" condemn the world ; but that the world through 
" him might be saved. He that believeth on him 
" is not condemned : but he that believeth not is 
" condemned already, because he hath not believed 

'i Mark xvi. \b, 16. 



364 Want of antiquity and universality 

" in the name of the only begotten Son of God. 
" And this is the condemnation^ that light is come 
" into the world, and men loved darkness rather 
" than light, because their deeds were evil^" It 
will not be denied, that the condemnation here 
spoken of is the same which is denounced in the 
text previously quoted. What then is the ground 
of condemnation here stated? Is it not, that men 
rejected the truth after it had been made known to 
them? Light is come into the ivorld, and men 
loved darkness rather than light. How then can 
the same condemnation apply to those to whom that 
truth has never been made known ? If this view of 
the text be just, it yields a corroborative testimony 
to the exposition we proposed of the former citation 
from St. Mark. 

" If I had not come and spoken unto them, they 
" had not had sin : but now have they no cloke for 

*' their sin If I had not done among them the 

" works which none other man did, they had not had 
" sin : but now have they both seen and hated both 
" me and my Father \" Is it not here distinctly 
stated, that the guilt of the Jews in rejecting the 
Messiah consisted in their disobedience to the word 
that was preached, and disregard to the evidence 
that was offered, to them? If our Lord had not 
spoken to them, if he had not offered to them the 
most decided attestation of his Divine authority ; 
they had not had sin. It surely is not easy to re- 
concile these declarations with the language of those 
who maintain, that the severe judgment of everlast- 

" John iii. 17, IH, If). » .)ohn xv. 22, 24. 



in the scheme of revelation^ considered. 365 

ing misery will pass upon all who, without any con- 
currence of their own wills, have lived and died in 
ignorance of Christian truth. 

These considerations have been offered, without 
any view to the decision of the question, but solely 
for the purpose of denying the right of decision to 
those who assume it. What the state of the case 
really is, we do not pronounce. In the principle 
which is assumed by the deistical objector, we ob- 
serve the basis of a reasoning which is injurious to 
the cause of Christianity. That principle, we con- 
tend, is void of all warrant from scripture, the only 
authority which is in this case admissible. If the 
principle itself cannot justly be maintained, it would 
be a needless trouble to debate the validity of the 
inference which is drawn from it. 

The principle thus assumed as the ground of a 
sceptical objection, has, indeed, been seriously enter- 
tained by some Christians, and has even been incor- 
porated into the forms of doctrine which have been 
professed by certain communities of the Christian 
world. But the advocate for the Gospel is concerned 
only with the truth, as it is in Jesus. He has no- 
thing to do with the modifications of science, or the 
systematic arrangements of scholastic theology. He 
is not called upon to vindicate any of those extrava- 
gant views, through the medium of which the beauty 
of the Gospel has been obscured and disfigured. Of 
a question like this he is not obliged to take either 
the affirmative or the negative side. He has a right 
to dismiss it altogether, as being among the secret 
things which belong unto the Lord our God. In 
truth, there are many points in theology, in regard 



366 Want of antiquity and universality 

to which the silent feeling of reverential humility is 
more becoming than the language of peremptory de- 
cision. This we conceive to be one of them. With re- 
gard to those who maintain a different opinion, we 
cannot so far compromise the cause of sacred truth out 
of deference to them, as to suffer, that the evidence of 
the Gospel should be placed on such a footing as to 
stand or fall with any peculiarities of their doctrine. 
The principle now under consideration ought, we 
contend, before it is employed as a ground of argu- 
ment, to be supported by stronger proof than any 
which it is capable of receiving. And if we regard 
the many shining lights of the Christian church, 
who have, in every age, maintained the contrary 
proposition, its truth must appear in the highest de- 
gree questionable and dubious. 

Our attention is in the next place due to the 
doubts and difficulties of the beheving Christian. 
If the benefit of the Gospel be limited to so small a 
portion of the human race, what wiU be the doom 
of those who never had an opportunity of coming to 
its light? WiU they perish everlastingly, because 
they have not embraced a blessing which has been 
placed beyond their reach? A few remarks may 
here be fitly introduced with regard to the general 
character of the difficulty proposed. 

The disposition which suggests this inquiry springs 
from a faulty indulgence of a propensity, which na- 
ture has wisely implanted in the human soul, as a 
stimulus to the acquisition of necessary and useful 
knowledge. The proper sphere for this propensity 
is, the pursuit of that knowledge which may teach 
the way of happiness and the obligations of duty. 



in the scheme of revelation, considered. 367 

When the spirit of inquiry goes beyond the bounda- 
ries of this its legitimate province, it will always be 
found at the same time neglectful of more proper 
employments. He who is engaged in vain and cu- 
rious speculations respecting the condition of be- 
nighted heathens, will be in danger of forgetting the 
apphcation to himself of that awful question, What 
must I do to be saved ? 

In regard to this particular, the wisdom and be- 
nevolence which appeared in the conduct of our 
Redeemer are equally remarkable and edifying. 
"WTien a question was proposed to him which had 
for its object the welfare of the inquirer, his an- 
swer was full and explicit. Thus when he is asked, 
" "What good thing shall I do that I may have eter- 
" nal life ? " he replies, '^ If thou wilt enter into life, 
" keep the commandments ^." Of the same charac- 
ter is the conduct of St. Paul with regard to the in- 
terrogation, "What must I do to be saved?" The 
reply is direct to the point : " BeHeve on the Lord 
" Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved i." Very dif- 
ferent is the treatment of those inquiries which 
spring from a distempered and unregulated curiosity. 
When for instance our Lord is inquired of, " Lord, 
" are there few that be saved?" the question is fol- 
lowed by an admonition far more beneficial to the 
querist, than the information desired : " Strive to 
" enter in at the strait gate : for many, I say unto 
" you, will seek to enter in, and shall not be able "^." 
On another occasion, when he is interrogated re- 

^ Matth. xix. 16,17. i Acts xvi. 30, 3 I . 

«" Luke xiii. 23, 24. 



368 Wa?it of antiquity and universality 

specting a subject which had no connexion with 
either the duties or the interests of the inquirer, his 
answer is, " What is that to thee ? follow thou 
" me^" On such occasions, the information soli- 
cited, so far from being useful to the inquirer, would 
have given encouragement to a disposition highly- 
pernicious to him who indulges it; and as the in- 
quiry related to the secret counsels of God, the dis- 
closure of them would have been inconsistent with 
the wise arrangements of his providential govern- 
ment. Of the same character, we conceive, is the 
question to which our present observations are more 
immediately directed. 

That the largest portion of the human race still 
lie in darkness and in the shadow of deaths is a fact 
which ought not to furnish the occasion of curious 
and impertinent speculation, but to suggest a prac- 
tical obligation of duty. With reference to this sub- 
ject, the words, Follow thou me, constitute a pre- 
cept of personal application to every individual Chris- 
tian. It would be well if the mind, whenever it 
wanders beyond the just limits of inquiry, could be 
brought back to its proper sphere of contemplation 
by a recollection of them. 

If a feUow-creature were seen struggling with 
the waves and far from land, what would be the 
proper course to pursue ? Would it be to stand idle, 
to speculate concerning the event, and to balance 
the chances of escape and destruction ? Or would it 
not be to put forth our exertions without delay for 
his rescue ? Similar to this should be our conduct 

n .Tohn xxi. 22. 



in the scheme of revelatioyi, considered. 369 

with regard to those countless families of mankind, 
who are aliens from the covenant of God, and igno- 
rant of the way of eternal life which is in Christ 
Jesus. Our Lord had compassion on the multitude, 
because they were as sheep having no shepherd. If 
we profess in sincerity the faith which he taught, 
ought not that compassion to affect our hearts also ? 
He submitted to the deepest humiliation, underwent 
the most laborious toils, and endured the most unut- 
terable pains, that he might proclaim liberty to the 
captives, and the opening of the prison to them that 
are bound. Shall the same object be regarded by us 
with indifference? How can such a disposition ac- 
cord with that of our Divine Master? The same 
mind should be in us which was also in him. If it 
be not, where is our obedience to the call. Follow 
thou me? 

To promote to the utmost of our power the ex- 
tension of the faith, is an obligation inseparable from 
the Christian character. Scarcely any truth can be 
less disputable than this. It must then be the bounden 
duty of every man who professes the Christian name, 
to further the labours of the missionary by every 
method, which, in the exercise of a candid judg- 
ment, he may approve. For how shall the heathen 
believe in Him of whom they have not heard ? and 
how shall they hear without a preacher °? 

Such is the plain and simple ground of obligation 
with regard to the subject of missions. And this 
obligation must be regarded as embracing, not only 
the duty of contributing each his separate assistance 

" Rom. X. 14. 

Bb 



370 Want of antiquity and universality 

to the work ; but also that of exciting, to the utmost 
of our power, a kindred zeal and interest in the bo- 
soms of others : for we are to provoke one another 
to love and to good works. By so doing shall we 
exercise a proper feeling of gratitude to God, by 
whom we ourselves have been called out of our na- 
tural darkness into his marvellous light: that as we 
have received mercy, we should by the manifesta- 
tion of the truth commend ourselves to every man's 
conscience in the sight of God p. 

We propose not here to specify the methods by 
which this work ought to be carried on. Nor do we 
intend to canvass the merits of various plans which 
are actually employed for that purpose. We contend 
only in general, that a lively interest in the subject 
ought to be both felt and exerted. A scrupulous 
anxiety respecting the orthodoxy of the missionary 
is not to be condemned, but strenuously insisted up- 
on. But if we feel upon this subject as we ought to 
do, we cannot pretend an exemption from the duty 
of assisting such enterprises as pursue this important 
object, without any compromise of sound doctrine, or 
the employment of any injudicious means. Nay, if 
there be any institutions, professing this design, 
whose principles and conduct are to us unexcep- 
tionable, we ought for this very reason to espouse 
their cause with the greater zeal : because the more 
of this important work is done on principles in 
unison with those of our own church, the ground, 
being so far occupied by ourselves, is consequently 
taken away from those who dissent from that doc- 

P 2 Cor. iv. 1, 2. 



in the scheme of revelation, considered. 371 

trine which we believe to be true, and that disci- 
pline which we venerate as apostolical. 

But the subject of missions will doubtless be re- 
garded with great variety of sentiment. A differ- 
ence of judgment will exist as to the most suitable 
methods of conducting them : and the measure of 
success to be expected from such undertakings will 
be variously computed. By some, it is to be feared 
that the estimate will be framed below the just 
amount of probable expectation. This is deeply to 
be lamented ; since a prospect vv^hich gives little en- 
couragement to hope must naturally chill the ardour 
of enterprise. By some it will be thought, that no 
considerable extension of the Christian church can 
reasonably be expected without a great and special 
providential interposition ; and that we must wait 
therefore for some signal revolution to be brought 
about by God who ruleth over all things. After this 
manner, indeed, was the Gospel first established on 
the ruins of pagan idolatry : and it may be expected 
by some, that a similar interposition will take place 
in order to give to the Christian faith a complete 
and universal triumph. 

But the present subject is not a matter of mere 
calculation. We cannot, in this case, claim to our- 
selves a liberty of acting or not, according to the 
measure of good which we think may eventually 
crown our efforts. It is a matter of duty : the 
Gospel requires it of us : we are to do what we 
can : we must seek the blessing of God on our ex- 
ertions, and leave the event to him. If this statement 
of duty appear questionable in its largest applica- 

B b 2 



372 Want of antiquity and universality 

tion, it will cease to be so when regard is had to the 
following particulars. 

We are then to observe, that there are certain 
means conducive to this end, the employment of 
which cannot, without serious guilt and heavy re- 
sponsibility, be neglected by any Christian. Not to 
exert these means must be to violate our obedience ; 
to question their efficacy must be to evince the 
weakness of our faith ; to deny their actual success 
must be to contradict the voice of history. If the 
heathen be still unconverted, it will be something at 
least, that the sin of obstructing their conversion lie 
not at our door : which it certainly will, if we are 
guilty of any neglect as to the points which will im- 
mediately be brought under our consideration. 

First then, the conversion of the heathen is a 
proper object of prayer. This is plainly required by 
our religion. It is recognised as such in the form of 
prayer which our Divine Master has taught us : Thy 
kingdom come. Agreeable to this also are the forms 
which our church has prescribed for the members of 
her communion. In them we pray, " that God's ways 
" may be known upon earth, his saving health among 
" all nations ; that he would have mercy upon all 
" Jews, Turks, infidels, and heretics ; that he would 
" take from them all ignorance, hardness of heart, 
" and contempt of his holy word ; and that he would 
" so fetch them home to his flock, that they may be 
" one fold under one shepherd, Jesus Christ." What 
now, is the state of our feelings with regard to such 
prayers and the blessings they entreat ? Are these pe- 
titions offered only with the cold formality of the lips? 



in the scheme of revelation, considered. 373 

Or, what is worse, is there, though not avowed even to 
ourselves, latently at work within us, a cold-hearted 
philosophical scepticism, generated by the difficulty 
of reconciling the appointments of providence with 
the scriptural doctrine respecting the effect of prayer? 
If there be ; we cannot have learned aright the na- 
ture and efficacy of prayer, nor can we be sincere in 
professing our concurrence with the views of our 
church on that subject. Are our souls inwardly 
warmed with any portion of that Divine love, which 
brought our Redeemer down from heaven to rescue 
us from sin and death? Do we cherish the same 
compassionate regard for a benighted and a perishing 
world ? Do we, under the influence of these feelings, 
beg a blessing on the labours of the pious mission- 
ary ? Do we entreat God that he would open the 
hearts of the poor heathen, as he once did that of 
Lydia, that they may receive the word of reconcili- 
ation and peace ? If we cannot answer these ques- 
tions satisfactorily, it is time that we should dismiss 
our wanton speculations, and become more thought- 
ful of our duties. 

God hath reserved to his own disposal the times 
and seasons when his appointments shall take ef- 
fect. He has however declared to you the influence 
of prayer as an effectual means of obtaining the 
good you desire : and though your petition should 
not now immediately be granted, your prayer will 
at least return into your own bosom, and bring a 
blessing along with it. 

In the next place, with respect to us who profess 
and call ourselves Christians, it is fit to inquire, 
what is the temper of soul that we carry about us ? 

B b 3 



374 f'Tant of antiquity and universality 

What is the character of our daily conversation ? 
Doth our light so shine before men, that when they 
see our good works, they may, by yielding obedience 
to his Son and enrolling themselves under his banner, 
glorify, not us, but our Father which is in heaven ? 
Are the graces of our holy calling discovered in our 
lives? Do we manifest in our habitual conduct, 
that active virtue and unblamable holiness, that 
self-denial and detachment from the world, which 
may testify the warmth of our charity and the in- 
ward purity of our hearts ? Do we thus endeavour 
to recommend the profession of the Gospel, and gain 
over to it the affections of men ? 

There are, it is to be feared, but few professors of 
the Gospel, who can without uneasy feelings apply 
these questions to themselves. It is difficult indeed 
to make these observations sensibly felt as a matter 
of personal application to each individual Christian. 
To represent to every wicked and careless profes- 
sor, that he obstructs the progress of the Gospel 
and the salvation of the unconverted world, may 
look like an overcharged statement of the guilt 
which he incurs. The conduct of a single person, 
it will be said, can in most cases have little in- 
fluence on the religious faith of distant nations. 
This may be admitted: but it must, at the same 
time, be also admitted, that the general corruption 
of the Christian world has a very great and highly 
pernicious influence. If this be the case ; if the ag- 
gregate of wickedness prevailing in the whole visible 
church be justly considered as the great cause which 
obstructs the further diffusion of the Gospel : then 
whoever singly contributes, in whatever degree, to 



i 



in the scheme of ret) elation^ considered, 375 

that aggregate, must be in his proportion chargeable 
with the consequence of it : and thus will every 
Christian who walks not w orthy of his vocation be 
justly considered, as personally responsible for the 
alienation of the heathen from the covenant of God's 
mercy. In like manner, every act repugnant to the 
Christian profession ; every indulgence of pride, sel- 
fishness, malice, and revenge; every breach of charity 
and justice ; must be considered as accessary to the 
production of the same lamentable effect : since it 
brings a scandal on the Gospel, generates an un- 
worthy opinion of its character, and thus obstructs 
its reception. 

Here then is a matter of practical obligation sug- 
gested by the very subject of our present contempla- 
tion. We are most deeply concerned that we take 
heed to it and to ourselves, since the species of guilt 
we are now considering is the very same with that 
which forms the subject of our Lord's awful denun- 
ciation : " Woe unto the world because of offences [ 
" for it must needs be that offences come ; but woe 
" to that man by whom the offence cometh^!" 

If any doubt be entertained, whether^ in the fore- 
going observations, the effect has been duly assigned 
to its proper cause, our judgment as to this point 
will be materially assisted by attending to the three 
following propositions. First, the progress of the 
Gospel has in some instances been obstructed by the 
wickedness of professing Christians. Secondly, it 
has in other instances been furthered by the purity 
and holiness of their lives. Thirdly, the precepts of 

1 Matth. xviii. 7. 
B b 4 



376 Want of antiquity and universality 

the Gospel itself are framed on a recognition of the 
tendencies thus developed by experience. 

First, The progress of the Gospel has been in 
some instances obstructed by the wickedness of pro- 
fessing Christians. To this cause we must ascribe 
the failure of many pious and charitable exertions 
for the conversion of the heathen. When the word 
of eternal life has been conveyed to them, they have 
turned away from it with repugnance, by reason of 
the crimes and vices they have witnessed in those 
by whom the Christian faith was professed. They 
have seen them in their conduct instigated by cruel- 
ty, lust, injustice, and avarice, and have conse- 
quently been led to estimate their religion by their 
actions. Too much occasion for such misconceptions 
has been furnished, we have reason to fear, by those 
Europeans who have gone to distant climates in 
pursuit of wealth. 

Secondly, The purity and holiness of professing 
Christians has in many instances been auxiliary to 
the progress of their religion. In order to the proof 
of this position, let us advert to the early history of 
the Christian church. 

It will not be denied by those to whom we now 
address ourselves, that the Christian religion, in the 
interval between its first publication and its public 
establishment in the Roman empire, made a very 
rapid and extensive progress. Nor will it be con- 
tended, that its success was owing to human co- 
operation or worldly support. The powerful, the 
great, and the learned, were united in their hostility 
to it ; it furnished no recommendation to the favour 
of the world ; it was commonly assailed with slan- 



in the scheme of revelation^ considered. 377 

der, ridicule, and persecution ; the confiscation of 
property, the torture of the body, the infamy of a 
public execution, were the frequent consequences of 
embracing it ; the liability to these evils was in all 
cases the prospect which its professors were bound 
to contemplate. On this fact the greatest stress of 
argument is justly laid by those who maintain the 
Divine original of the Gospel. 

It will in no degree invalidate this conclusion, but 
rather strengthen it, if we assert, that the exemplary 
sanctity of the Christian character in these early 
ages, constituted a powerful, though subordinate, in- 
strument of accelerating its propagation. It will 
strengthen the conclusion, I say, because this very 
sanctity of character ought justly to be viewed as 
constituting in itself a part of the miraculous evi- 
dence of Christianity. It likewise bears testimony, 
as a proof of sincerity in the early converts, to the 
reality of the miracles which they professed to re- 
gard as the foundation and establishment of their 
faith. 

The evidence in support of this position must ne- 
cessarily be that of testimony, and must be derived 
from those authors whose writings illustrate that 
early period of church history. Among these, we 
will, in the first place, refer to a statement which 
we find in the work of a popular ecclesiastical 
liistorian. In treating of the causes which contri- 
buted to extend the limits of the church in the 
third century, he says : " The acts of beneficence 
" and liberality performed by the Christians, even 
" towards persons whose religious principles they 



378 JVant of antiquity and universality 

" abhorred, had a great influence in attracting the 
" esteem, and removing the prejudices of many, 
*' who were thus prepared for examining with 
" candour the Christian doctrine, and consequently 
" for receiving its divine light. The worshippers 
" of the pagan deities must have been destitute of 
" every generous affection, of every humane feel- 
" ing, if the view of that boundless charity which 
" the Christians exercised towards the poor, the 
" love they expressed even to their enemies, the 
" tender care they took of the sick and infirm, the 
" humanity they discovered in the redemption of 
" captives, and the other illustrious virtues which 
" rendered them so worthy of universal esteem, had 
" not touched their hearts, dispelled their preposses- 
" sions, and rendered them more favourable to the 
" disciples of Jesus ^" 

But the testimony of writers living within the 
period we have specified, being more authentic, will 
probably be regarded with greater interest and cre- 
dit. We therefore adduce the following extract from 
the first Apology of Justin Martyr, a treatise com- 
posed and addressed to the emperor Antoninus Pius 
about the 150th year of the Christian era. In this 
passage, the point which more particularly claims 
our attention is, the striking alteration of charac- 
ter in the Christian converts which is said to have 
ensued on their embracing the faith. " We who 
" heretofore indulged licentious pleasures," says the 

^ Mosheim's Ecclesiastical Histon,-, Cent, 111. parti, chap. 1. 
§..0. 



in the scheme of revelation, considered. 379 

venerable father, " are now devoted to chastity and 
" temperance ^ We who formerly exercised magical 
" arts, have now dedicated ourselves wholly to the 
" good and eternal God. We who loved nothing 
" like the acquisition of money and of wealth, now 
" contribute all that we have into a common stock, 
" and impart to every one who is in want. We who 
" were pointed against each other with mutual hatred 
" and destruction, and would not so much as warm 
" ourselves at the same fire with those of a different 
" tribe on account of different institutions, now, 
" since the appearing of Christ, live and diet toge- 
*' ther, and pray for our enemies. With regard to 
" those who hate us without a cause, we labour to 
" convert them ; in order that they, by living up to 
" the virtuous precepts of Christ, may be filled with 
" comfortable hopes of obtaining the same future 
" happiness with ourselves, to be given them by 
" that God who is the Lord of all things ^" 

The visible effects of the Christian faith as they 
were generally discovered in the lives of those who 
embraced it, are thus described by a writer who 
lived about the termination of the period to which 
we refer. " The powerful influence of the Divine 
" law on the souls of men, arising from its simpli- 
" city and truth, may be seen by daily experience. 
" Give me a man who is passionate, reproachful, and 
" ungovernable : with a very few divine words, I 
" will render him perfectly gentle and tractable. 



^ The words of the original are : O; •nahcci y,€v ttopveiocK; j^a/poi/re^, 
* .Tust. Mart. Apol. i. c. 14. 



380 Want of antiquity and universality 

" Let him be a covetous and griping miser : I will 
" soon shew him to you exercising liberality, and 
" dispensing his money abundantly to the needy. 
*' Let him be fearful of suffering death : soon shall 
" he despise the most frightful tortures which cru- 
" elty can inflict. Let him be a slave to his lusts 
" and his licentious passions : soon shall you behold 
" him adorned with sobriety, chastity, and tempe- 
" ranee. Let him be cruel and bloodthirsty : his fe- 
" rocity shall soon be changed into real compassion 
" and tenderness. Let him be unjust, stupid, and 
" wicked : quickly shall he become equitable, and 
" wise, and innocent. When once he is washed in 
** the Christian laver, the malignity of his character 
" will wholly disappear "." 

But the force of such representations, like the 
shades and colours of a painting, will always be 
heightened by contrast : and the beneficial efficacy 
of a Christian faith will also be best estimated, by a 
comparative regard to the influence of pagan the- 
ology and philosophy, as it was seen, in the same 
ages, to operate on the human character. With this 
view, the words of Lactantius, which almost imme- 
diately follow the last quotation, may fitly be ad- 
duced. After having described, in the manner we 
have seen, the effects of Christianity, he proceeds : 
" Which of the philosophers ever accomplished these 
" things, or could accomplish them if he would"? 
" They spend their lives in the study of philoso- 
" phy ; but, if nature be at all unfavourable to their 
" views, they are unable to effect any improvement 

" Lact. Div. Inst. iii. 26. 



i7i the scheme of revelation, considered, 381 

" in either others or themselves. And their wis- 
" dom, even when most efficacious, consists, not in 
" eradicating vice, but in concealing it from the 
" world ^." 

How rarely in these times any remarkable crime 
was discovered in the community of believers, w^e 
may judge from two writers who flourished about 
the beginning of the third century ; who declare, 
that in their time the public gaols of the Roman 
emph'e were crowded with pagans, while not a single 
Christian was to be found there, except such as 
were imprisoned on account of their religion. To 
this testimony considerable weight will justly be at- 
tached, if we reflect on the large amount of the 
Christian population of the empire in that age y. 

The representation of this matter which is given 
us by Athenagoras is very full and remarkable. 
This writer was contemporary with Justin Martyr, 
whose testimony we have already cited. He thus 

^ Lact. Div. Inst. iii. 26. 

y Minucius Felix and TertuUian. The words of the former are 
as follows: "De vestro numero [i. e. ethnicorum] career exse- 
" stuat: Christianus ibi nullus, nisi aut reus suas religionis, aut 
" profugus." Octavius, c. 35, He mentions indeed those who had 
apostatized from the faith, as well as those who were accused on 
account of it: but as the former do not belong to the Christian 
communion, the construction which is given in the text cannot be 
charged with misrepresentation. TertuUian speaks to the same 
effect: " De vestris semper sestuat career, de vestris semper me- 
" talla suspirant, de vestris semper bestise saginantur, de vestris 
" semper munerarii noxiorum greges pascunt. Nemo illic Chri- 
*' stianus, nisi hoc tantum, aut si et ahud, jam non Christianus." 
Apolog. c. 44. 



382 Want of antiquity and ziniversality 

expresses himself, on a comparative observation of 
the lives and morals, of those who cultivated 
the learning of the schools and of those who pro- 
fessed the doctrine of the Gospel. After describing 
the subtleties of logical disquisition, which formed 
the chief employment of philosophy in his age, he 
proceeds to the following effect : " Your philoso- 
" phers profess by such discourses to conduct their 
" followers to happiness : but who are there among 
" them so purified in soul, as to love their enemies 
" instead of hating them, to bless those who revile 
" them instead of reviling again, (though indeed a 
" simple retaliation of evil words would by such men 
" be esteemed a proof of signal moderation,) and to 
" pray for those who seek the destruction of their 
" lives ? These teachers of wisdom are, on the con- 
" trary, always actuated by an evil design while 
" they are exploring the mysteries of their art ; al- 
" ways bent upon the accomplishment of some 
" wicked purpose : while the art of words^ and not 
" the manifestation of a good life, is the object they 
" pursue. But among the Christians, you will meet 
" with the most unlettered characters, manual la- 
" bourers, and decrepit old women ; who, though 
" little able to display in words the advantages of a 
" studious life, wiU evince in their conduct that be- 
" neficial course of action which springs from a rec- 
" titude of moral principle. They do not treasure 
" up fine sayings in the memory, but shew forth in 
" their lives the light of a virtuous demeanour : 
" when thy are struck, they strike not again ; when 
" robbed, they do not go to law ; they give to those 



in the scheme of revelation^ considered, 383 

" who ask of them, and love their neighbours as 
" themselves ^." 

Such is the generally concurrent testimony of an- 
tiquity respecting that purity of life which charac- 
terised the primitive profession of the Gospel. The 
force of this testimony cannot easily be invalidated. 
It is derived from writings which boldly challenged 
the contradiction of adversaries, and is even con- 
firmed by the concurrent attestation of those who 
vilified and persecuted the Christian name. Of this 
class was the younger Pliny, whose character of the 
Christians is quite in unison with the descriptions of 
the Christian writers themselves: for in his cele- 
brated letter to Trajan, he thus states the result of 
his inquiry into the conduct and practices of that 
sect: " That the whole of their fault, or error, lay in 
" this ; that they were wont to meet together on a 
" stated day before it was light, and sing among 
" themselves alternately a hymn to Christ, as a God; 
" and to bind themselves by an oath, not that they 
" would commit any kind of wickedness, but that 
" they would not be guilty of theft, or robbery, or 
" adultery ; never to falsify their word, nor to deny 
" a pledge committed to them when called upon to 
" return it : that when these things were performed, 
" it was their custom to separate ; and then to come 
" together again to a meal, which they ate in com- 
" mon without any disorder ^." 

The sanctity of life which thus adorned the pro- 
fession of the Gospel was spoken of, as constituting 
in itself a part of the miraculous evidence of the 

' Leg. pro Christianis, c. 1 1 . ^ Plin, Ep, lib. x. 97. 



384 Want of antiquity and universality 

Gospel. A few more citations from the writings of 
primitive Christianity will serve to illustrate this re- 
mark. 

Justin Martyr^ in his Dialogue with Trypho, refers 
to two remarkable passages in the prophetical writ- 
ings of the Old Testament. The first is from Isaiah : 
** Hearken unto me, my people ; and give ear unto 
" me, O my nation : for a law shall proceed from me, 
" and I will make my judgment to rest for a light 
" of the people. My righteousness is near ; my sal- 
'* vation is gone forth, and mine arms shall judge 
" the people : the isles shall wait upon me^ and on 
" mine arm shall they trust ^." The next is taken 
from Jeremiah : " Behold, the days come, saith the 
" Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the 
" house of Israel, and with the house of Judah : not 
" according to the covenant that I made with their 
" fathers in the day that I took them by the hand 
" to bring them out of the land of Egypt ^." Having 
cited these passages, he thus reasons in applica- 
tion of them to the existing state of the Christian 
church : " If God did foretell the introduction of a 
" new covenant, which was to be for a light to the 
" Gentiles ; and if we see and are convinced, that 
" through the name of that very Jesus Christ who 
" was crucified, men turn from idols and all iniquity 

»' Is. li. 4, 5^ 

c Jer. xxxi. 31,32. Justin, in disputing with a .Jew, to whom 
the scriptures of the Old Testament were familiar, may have 
thought it unnecessary to quote at length the passages to which 
he refers. The scope of his reasoning would have been more ap- 
parent if he had continued this last citation so as to embrace the 
following verse, and particularly those words, ** 1 will put my law 
" in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts.*' 



in the scheme of reveJat'wn, considered. 385 

*' to God, and maintain even to death the confession 
" of their faith and their piety : from the perform- 
** ance of these works and the miraculous power 
*' which accompanied them, all men may understand, 
" that this is the new law, and the new covenant, 
" and the expectation of those who out of all nations 
" expected to receive the blessings of God ^." 

The writings of Origen furnish some very remark- 
able passages in application to this subject. " If any 
*' man," says he in his reply to Celsus, " were able to 
" cleanse the souls of men from the defilement of vice, 
*•' from the incontinence of lust, from iniquity, and 
" from contempt of God ; if he could display the ex- 
" ertion of this talent in reclaiming only a hundred 
" persons : not even such a reformer as this could rea- 
" sonably be thought, without Divine aid, to have in- 
" fused even into that small number of persons the 
" principles which had been effectual to liberate 
" them from so many evil affections. If, on a serious 
view of this subject, you agree that no good can 
be effected among men without the aid of God : 
with how much more confidence may you assert 
" this with respect to Jesus. Examine the former 
" life of many who have come to his word, and com- 
" pare it with the change which ensued. Reflect 
"' in what incontinence, injustice, and avarice, each 

* of them lived, until, according to the language of 
" Celsus and his disciples, they were beguiled, and 
" imbibed a doctrine, as they express it, destructive 
■' of the happiness of life. Reflect in what manner 

' they have become improved, since they received 

• the doctrine of Christ, in the equity and kindness 

.'^ Diul. cum Tryphoiie, i-. 11. 

c c 



38() W^ant of' antiquity cmd universality 

" of their dispositions, the virtuous gravity of their 
*" demeanour, and the steady control of every sensual 

" appetite. Whoever reflects on these subjects 

" will find, that Jesus both undertook and effected 
" more than the nature of man is able to accom- 
" plish. For though, from the very first, all men 
" resisted the universal propagation of his word ; 
" though in each age it was opposed by kings, by 
" their generals and subordinate commanders, by all 
" who were invested with power, by the magistrates 
" of every city, the soldiers, and the people ; never- 
" theless it prevailed, because, being the word of 
*' God, it could not be obstructed. It became supe- 
" rior to all its numerous adversaries ; it forced its 
" reception through the whole of Greece and the 
" greater part of the rest of the world, and con- 
" verted numberless souls to that piety and obedi- 
" ence to God which it dictates ^." The Divine 
character and power of Christ is again asserted in 
these words : " The virtue of Jesus was exerted, not 
" only during the time of his dwelling in the flesh ; 
*' but even until now, the power of Jesus worketh 
" conversion and correction in those who through 
" him believe in God V The same writer declares, 
that "the cause of Jesus. is best defended by the 
" lives of his true disciples ; since thus the excel- 
" lency of his doctrine is proclaimed, every calumny 
" is overpowered, and the Saviour confutes and sub- 
" verts the false testimonies and accusations of his 
*' enemies ^." 

T\\G force and effect of the reasoning thus pur- 

* (our C elsiiin, i. 2G, 27. ^ Ibid. i. 43. « Ibid. i. 2. 



ifi the scheme of revelation, considered, 387 

sued can hardly be disputed. It yields to the ge- 
neral evidence of our faith a powerful auxiliary, of 
which no friend to Christianity would willingly see 
it deprived. Certainly the denial of such arguments 
can scarcely be deemed consistent with the doctrines 
of our religion. For the inward principle of vital 
holiness cannot, on any just views of scripture doc- 
trine, be regarded in any other light than as the 
operation of God's Holy Spirit upon the soul. It is 
a principle as distinct from any natural influence of 
human motives or of human reasonings, as that by 
which the dead are raised to life. For that which 
is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born 
of the Spirit is spirit. The natural man is dead in 
trespasses and sins ; the natural man receiveth not 
the things of the Spirit of God. Those things are 
spii'ituaUy discerned, without the knowledge of 
which the soul of man must be dead to all the pur- 
poses of sanctity and salvation. 

In a word, if, as Christians, we would maintain 
consistency of principle, v^e cannot deny the force of 
such arguments, nor dispute the advantage which 
the cause of Christianity derives from them. Let 
us then apply the consideration to ourselves, and re- 
member, that the argument itself can no further be 
employed, than as the virtues of a Christian life shall 
be found subsisting in conjunction with the profes- 
sion of the Gospel. 

The obligation for which we are contending will 
be further illustrated if we consider, thirdly, that the 
precepts of the Gospel itself are framed on a recog- 
nition of the respective tendencies of a holy and a 
sinful life as they are developed by experience. This 

c c 2 



388 Want of antiquity and universality 

will be manifest from the following texts. " Let 
** your light so shine before men, that they may see 
" your good works, and glorify your Father which 
" is in heaven ^." It is required of some, that they 
" be in behaviour as becometh holiness^;" to others 
such a conduct is prescribed, that " the word of God 
" be not blasphemed ^^ ;" to others it is urged as a 
motive of duty, " that they may adorn the doctrine 
" of God our Saviour in all things ^" Others are 
called upon so to demean themselves, that those 
who obey not the word, may be won by their 
chaste and submissive conversation '^\ " Dearly be- 
" loved, I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims, 
*' abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the 
" soul ; having your conversation honest among the 
" Gentiles : that, whereas they speak against you as 
" evildoers, they may, by your good works, which 
" they shall behold^ glorify God in the day of visita- 
" tion "." We must endeavour to be " blameless and 
" harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke, in the 
" midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among 
" whom we are to shine as lights in the world ^." 

We see then the course of duty to which, on 
every recollection of the unconverted world, we 
should feel ourselves directed. We are not to waste 
our time in speculative inquiry : still less may we 
prescribe a line of conduct for the wisdom of our 
Creator. But we are to mortify our sins and our 
lusts, that God may be glorified as the giver of that 
power by which our corruptions are subdued. We 
are by well doing to recommend the Gospel to the 

'^ Matt. V. 1 {]. ' Tit. ii. 3. ^ Tit. ii. .5. ' Tit. ii. 10. 

'" I Pet. iii. 1, 2. " 1 Pet. ii. 11. 12. " Phil. ii. 15. : 



in the scheme of revelation, considered. 389 

hearts of our fellow-creatures, and to put to silence 
the ignorance of those who calumniate its sacred 
truth. We are to beware that its progress, and its 
due influence, be not obstructed by the sinfulness of 
our own lives ; and that the ignorance and infidelity 
of those, who still live in estrangement from God, 
be not chargeable to our account. To the labour of 
the missionary we are, without compromising any 
dictate of prudence or discrimination of doctrine^, to 
contribute such encouragement and assistance, as 
may be adequate to a just estimate of the import- 
ance of the work, of the value of human souls, and 
of our own obligations. Our prayers must entreat 
from God the hastening of his kingdom; and the te- 
nour of our lives must be framed in agreement with 
our petitions. This will be a course of action, alike 
honourable to our profession and beneficial to the 
world. We may add, that it will also be profitable 
to ourselves, as a qualification for that reward to 
which we aspire : since we shall thus lay up a good 
foundation against the day, when they who sleep in 
the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlast- 
ing life, and some to shame and everlasting con- 
tempt. For then, they that be wise shall shine as 
the brightness of the firmament ; and they that turn 
many to righteousness, as the stars for ever and 
ever p. 

P Dan. xii. 2, 3. 



C c 3 



SUPPLEMENTARY REMARKS, 



Thejirst number denotes the page, and the second the line, to which 
the reference is made. 

12. 11. 

XIAVING in this and the following pages described the 
effects which would naturally have resulted from inserting 
in the law of Moses an explicit statement of the doctrine 
of a future state ; having shewn that the tendency of such 
an arrangement would have been most unfavourable to the 
propagation of that religion to which the Law was only 
preparatory ; and having especially enlarged on the pre- 
judices against the Gospel which it would engender in the 
minds of the Jewish people : we deem it important to add, 
in relation to the last particular, a consideration, which 
gives to our deductions a degree of confirmation little less 
than irresistible. 

We are to observe then, that these deductions are not 
merely supported by abstract reasoning, but the evidence 
of fact. We admit that the doctrine of a future state is 
not taught in the Law ; and we have said, that if it had 
been so taught, the consequence would have been to in- 
flame the minds of the Jews with prejudice and hostiUty 
against the Gospel. But the Jews maintain that it ac- 
tually was taught. Now the conviction that it was so, 
would obviously produce the same effect on their minds as 
the fact itself: since the certainty of a fact, and the un- 
doubting belief of it, will naturally have the same influence 
on a reasonable being. We shall find then, on examining 
those sources of information from which only an authentic 
exposition of their sentiments can be obtained, that while 
persisting in the rejection of the Gospel, their views are 
precisely the same with those which, as we have said, 
they would have been led to entertain by finding the doc- 

c c 4 



392 Supplementary Remarks. 

trine of future rewards and punishments in the penta- 
teuch. 

In proof of this, the evidence we produce will, first, il- 
lustrate their opinions respecting this doctrine, as they 
suppose it to be taught in the Law : and, secondly, it will 
illustrate those other opinions which, as we have said, 
would have been consequently entertained as deductions 
from the former. 

I. That the doctrine of a future state is believed by the 
Jews to be the doctrine of their law, will appear from the 
following authorities. 

The first which w^e shall adduce is that of the historian 
Josephus, who says explicitly: " Our lawgiver has pro- 
" phesied, and God himself has pledged his steadfast faith, 
'' that to those w'ho fulfil his laws, and are ready, if need 
" be, to die for them, to them God has granted both that 
" they shall return to life again, and obtain a better life 
" from the change^." 

Our next authority shall be that of the rabbi Moses 
Maimonides. Of all the Jews who have lived since the 
national dispersion, it is impossible to mention a name 
more highly estimated by his countrymen. He is fami- 
liarly designated among them as the " Doctor of Right- 
" eousness," and the " Light of the Captivit}^" Such in- 
deed is their extravagant veneration for his character, that 
it surpasses even that with which they regard the prophets 
of their own canonical scriptures. ^J'his will appear from 
the following testimony to his merits, which has passed 
into such currency among them as to have become prover- 
bial : " From Moses to Moses, there has arisen none like 
^^ to Moses b." That is to say, according to the interpre- 
tation of Buxtorf and Pococke'^, From the time of Moses 
the lawgiver to that of Moses Maimonides, there has ap- 
peared none to he compared with the latter. These parti- 
culars will enable us to estimate the credit to which he is 
entitled as an expositor of Jewish opinions and doctrines. 

In his exposition of the Mishna we find the following 
passage : " As to the resurrection of the dead, that is the 
*^ great foundation stone^ of the law of Moses, which if a 
^' man believe not, he has neither lot nor place in the reli- 

■ Cont. Ap. ii. 30. The words of the original are quoted, page 282 of 
this work. 

*» Buxtorfii Praef. ad More Nevochim. 

* Praef. ad Portani Mosis. 

'' Literally, foundation of foundations. 



Supplementary Remarks. 393 

*' gion of the Jews«. This resurrection belongs only to 
" those who excel in virtue f." 

This writer (following the example of the Christian 
church in regard to the Apostles' Creed) drew up a brief 
confession of faith for the use of his countrymen. It con- 
sists of thirteen articles, which are also called foundalions 
of the Law. This creed is now in general use among the 
Jews. The last article contained in it declares the resur- 
rection of the dead. And the penal sanction of this, in com- 
mon with the other articles, is thus declared : " If any 
'*' man shall doubt respecting any one of these foundations, 
" he hath deserted the congregation of Israel, and denied 
" the foundation. He is called a heretic, an epicurean, 
" and a tearer up of roots S. Bim it becomes us to hate 
" and to destroy ; since of him it is said, Do not I hate, 
" Lord, them that hate thee^V 

Thirdly, the rabbi Judah Zabarah has the following pas- 
sage : " You must know that the foundation of our faith 
" concerning the resurrection of the dead, is from the Law. 
'* Now if any man shall, with a firm faith, believe the 
" resurrection of the dead, hut shall not believe that it is 
" a doctrine of the Law, behold, that man, notwithstand- 
" ing his faith, shall be reckoned as an infidel'^.'' 

After such decided authorities, the production of any 
other must be needless. We shall, therefore, on the 
ground of the foregoing citations, feel ourselves authorized 
to assume the fact. That the doctrine of a future state 
was and is believed by the Jews to be a doctrine of their 
law. 

11. It remains for us to shew the real existence of those 
erroneous tenets of religion, which, as we have contended, 
would naturally result from that belief. These tenets, we 
say, would wholly obstruct the reception of the Christian 
religion. They are as follows. 

1 . The doctrine of the Eternity and Unchangeableness of 
the Law. We have said, that the Jews would be naturally 
indisposed to embrace a new charter which contained no 
extension of former privileges^; and that the most power- 

* It is impossible to conceive what Warburton can have meant when he 
said, that " Maiinonides saw nothing in the Law but temporal sanctions." 
Div. Leg. b. iv. §. 6. vol. iv. p. 362. 

*' Pocockii Porta Mosis. Operum vol. i. p. 60. 

e Excindens plantas. 

h Pocock. Ibid. p. 66, 67. 

' Pocockii Notae Miscellanese in Portam IMosis. Operum vol. i. p. 163. 

^ P. 13. 



394 Supplementary Remarks, 

fill recommendation of the Gospel would have been de- 
stroyed by annexing the promise of eternal life to an an- 
terior dispensation ^ This is fully verified in the doctrine 
of which we now speak. It is thus stated by Maimoni- 
des : " It is a foundation of our law, that it will not have 
" an end nor be abolished for ever : and therefore it also 
" follows, according to our opinion, that there never was, 
" nor ever will he, any other latv, besides this only laiv 
" of Moses our teacher"^,'' He proceeds to deduce this 
doctrine from the consideration of the perfection of the 
Law". The scope of the argument is as follows. The 
Law is perfect, and therefore any dispensation which is 
substituted in its place, being different from that which is 
perfect, must itself be imperfect, and therefore unfit to 
supersede the former o. 

Again he says : '^ The ninth foundation of the Law is, 
" that this Law of Moses will not be abrogated, and that 
" no other than it will be given by God ; that nothing will 
" be added to it, nor taken from it, whether in the text or 
" the [cabalistic] interpretation P." 

He declares the punishment of a false prophet to be in- 
curred not only by him who shall add to, or diminish from, 
the Lav/ of Moses, but by him also who should even dare 
to contradict those cabalistical expositions of the Law 
which are at variance with its literal and obvious mean- 
ing ^. For these cabalistical expositions are by the Jews 
regarded as equally authoritative with the Law itself, and 
as a surer guide to its meaning than the words in which it 
is expressed. 

2. The doctrine of Justification by the Works of the Law. 
We have said, that if the promise of eternal life had been 
contained in the Law, obedience to that Law would have 
been viewed as constituting a meritorious title to if. This 



• P. 22. "' More Nev. p. ii. c. .SI), p. .30] . " P. 302. 

*> Yet the same writer, with remarkable inconsistency, declares in the 
same work, that the ritual law was, in great part, grounded on the circum- 
Btances of the age in which it was given; and admits that those circum- 
stances are so far changed, that even the knowledge of them had not come 
down to his time. His words are as follows : " Omnia praecepta, tan) nega- 
*' tiva (J nam affirmativa, quorum nobis ratio est occulta, nihil aliud sunt, quaui 
** remedia et medicinaj morborum quorundam illius temporis, quae ad nostram 
*' scientiam fDeo sit laus) non pcrvenerunt." More Nev. p. iii. c. 49. p. .508. 
It remains to be siiewn liow a code which was framed with a regard to 
changeable circumstances can, with relation to altered circumstances, main- 
tain an unchangeable perfection. 

y Porta Mosis, p. (id. i Ibid. p. 1.'^, ' P. 12. 



Supplementary Remarks, 395 

doctrine we shall also find to have been entertained in 
conjunction with the belief that such promise was contain- 
ed in the Law. The evidence of this point, supplied by the 
Epistles of St. Paul, especially those to the Romans and 
Galatians, is so full and decisive, as to supersede the ne- 
cessity of adducing further proof from the Jewish writers. 
A few particulars, however, relating to it will be found 
highly deserving of remark : since they explain the nature 
of this antichristian doctrine, as entertained by the Jews, 
and also illustrate the extent to which it has been carried. 
First then we are to observe, that the rule of justification 
thus proposed embraces no regard to the spiritual obe- 
dience of man, but limits its control to the outvv^ard ac- 
tions : the thoughts of the heart being viewed, generally 
speaking, as incapable of criminality in the eye of God. 
Witness David Kimchi's exposition of the following verse 
from the Psalms : " If 1 regard iniquity in my heart, the 
"Lord will not hear me^:" these last words, the Lord 
will 7iot hear me, being interpreted by that celebrated 
rabbi to signify, the Lord will not impute it to me as 
wickedness ; " for God," says he, " regards not an evil 
" thought in the light of a deed, unless such thought be 
" conceived against his own faith and religion ^" Second- 
ly, the same rule, as understood by the same people, pre- 
scribed only a partial and very limited obedience, as all 
that was necessary to satisfy the demands of Divine jus- 
tice. Thus the Jewish doctors declare, that the multi- 
tude of their commandments was given, that they might 
select out of them those which they best liked to observe, 
and by such obedience merit eternal life^. " Whoever," 
says Obadias de Bartenora, in an exposition of the Mish- 
nical doctrine, " shall sincerely observe even any one of 
" the 613 precepts [of the Law], behold he by fulfilling 
" that precept shall merit eternal life^." The Mishna also 
itself, as quoted by Bull, says, " Whosoever shall observe 
" any one precept, it shall be well with him, and his days 
" fehall be perpetuated, and he shall possess the landx." 

Such principles, we may observe after Bull^^ would have 
a natural tendency to coalesce with the pharisaical charac- 
ter described in the Gospel : in which minute observances 
are fastened upon as the ground of acceptance with the 
Deity, while the weightier matters of the Law are omitted. 

• Ps. Ixvi. 18, t Quoted from Bull, Harm. Ap. Diss. II. c. 16. §. 6. 

" Bull. Ibid. §. 7. X Quoted as above, §.7. 

y Quoted Ibid. §.8. ^ Harm. Ap. Diss. II. c. Ifi. 



396 Sapplementary Remarks. 

The same principles may also be reasonably viewed, as 
having, in part at least, furnished the occasion of those 
numerous passages in the New Testament, in which we 
find our Lord and his apostles, in that emphatic style 
which indicates the prevalence of a contrary doctrine, 
strongly inculcating the necessity of an impartial confor- 
mity, both of heart and life, to the whole will of God. 
They will also assist in explaining the proper notion of 
that legal justification which was so much insisted on by 
the Jewish and Judaizing adversaries of St. Paul ; and will 
illustrate the necessity that apostle was under of recti- 
fying so gross a misconception by teaching, as he did, that 
such justification could not be obtained without an exact 
and universal fulfilment of the whole Law. 

A passage in Maimonides, though it does not insist 
upon a personal righteousness as the ground of justifica- 
tion, contains a principle not undeserving of our notice ; 
since it is equally inconsistent with the doctrine of Chris- 
tianity on that subject : " This also is one of the funda- 
" mental principles of our Law, that all the good which 
" God has done, or will do, to us, is done on account of 
" the merit of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, because they 
" kept the way of the Lord by doing justice and judg- 
" ment^" 

3. The doctrine of the real efficacy of the Levitical sa- 
crifices. This would naturally be associated with the doc- 
trine to which we last adverted. Thus, that which was 
only an appointed means of grace, a figure for the time 
then present, and an emblem of the sacrifice of Christ, 
was exalted into a perfect satisfaction for sin, and an ade- 
quate ransom for souls. On this view it is plain, that the 
pretensions of the Gospel must have been inadmissible, 
and the doctrine of Christ crucified would naturally be, 
what it eventually proved, a stumblingblock to the Jews. 
That this doctrine was really entertained in our Saviour's 
time by the Jews, and that it actually presented a great 
obstruction to the Gospel, will be sufficiently manifest 
from the Epistle to the Hebrews. There we find St. Paul 
declaring that " such sacrifices can never make the comers 
" thereunto perfect," and " that the blood of bulls and of 
" goats cannot take away sin^." On which we may ob- 
serve, that such strong and repeated assertions, together 
with the reasonings by which they are supported, to the 

■ More Npv. p. iii. c. 43. p. 172. ^ Hcb. x. 1, 4. 



Supplementaty Remarks. 397 

effect of representing the inadequacy of thoso sacrifices to 
the purpose of remission, may be regarded as sufficient 
evidence that the contrary opinions were prevalent among 
his countrymen. It will not here be necessary to detail 
the opinions of the modern Jews in relation to this sub- 
ject^: since it cannot with candour be denied that they 
declare to the fullest extent the efficacy of their sacrifices 
for the expiation of guilt. This being admitted, it must 
necessarily follow, that it was a real and infjinsic, and not 
merely a saaximental, efficacy which they ascribed to 
them : since the universal sentiments of their nation dis- 
card the notion of any more precious sacrifice than those 
prescribed by their Law ; and they do not admit the idea 
of any more perfect and sufficient satisfaction for sin, from 
a reference to which their legal sacrifices derive their 
whole value as the appointed means of reconciliation with 
God. 

4. We have said, that, if eternal life had been the sanc- 
tion of the Mosaic Law, then obedience to that Law would 
have been regarded as a sufficient qualification for \t^. 
This opinion also is found to subsist in union with the 
persuasion that it was so : and we are to observe, that the 
obedience to which this value was attached, was a ritual, 
not a spiritual, obedience; in other words, that kind of 
obedience which sufficed to qualify the Jew to maintain 
his privilege as a member of the covenant and common- 
wealth of Israel, and which only just fell short of apostasy. 
We have also stated among the natural consequences of 
such a sanction, that all but the subjects of the Mosaical 
economy would have been regarded as shut out from the 
benefit of immortal life^. This in like manner was an ac- 
tual result of the same persuasion. The two opinions will 
be found contained together in the following doctrine of 
the Jews : namely, that the happiness of a future and eter- 
nal life would be the portion of every Israelite, and would 
be denied to all the rest of mankind. In support of this 
assertion we shall now produce the necessary evidence. 

The Mishna sa3^s, " Every Israelite will have his por- 
" tion in a future life ^ :" that is, in a state of future and 
eternal reward. This is qualified by a very few excep- 
tions, which, indeed virtually, are none at all : since they 

•^ A collection of them will be found in Outram de Sacr. 1. i. cc. 20. 22. 
and in Magee on Atonement, Diss, xxxiii, 
^ P. 12. « P. 168. 

♦" Tract. Sanhedrin. c. 10. Quoted in the Porta Mosis, page ,^2. 



398 Suppleinentary Remarks. 

appear to be grounded on those transgressions, which, ac- 
cording to the doctrine of the Rabbins, amounted to apo- 
stasy from the profession of the Law, and justified the 
excommunication of the offenders. 

The Tahimd says, " Abraham sits near the gates of 
" hell, and suffers not any wricked Israelite to go down to 
" hellh.'' 

Maimonides declares the same doctrine, audacter ac ro- 
tunde, as Bull expresses himself. " All wicked [Israel- 
" ites]," says he, " whose sins are more abundant than 
" their good works, will be judged according to the ex- 
" cess of their evil above their good deeds ; and after 
" that they will have their portion in the future life : be- 
^' cause all Israelites shall have their portion in the future 
" life*/' 

" Certainty," says Manasseh Ben Israel, " this ought to 
'' be an argument of powerful influence with all Israelites, 
'• to avoid excessive lamentation for the dead ; because it 
" is certain, that every Israelite shall exchange this life for 
« a betterk.'^ 

It maj' not be uninteresting to subjoin to the foregoing 
authorities a quotation from Justin Martyr : since it will 
at once display the nature, and prove the antiquity of the 
doctrine, maintained by the Jewish church on this subject. 
He thus, in his discourse with Trypho, describes the doc- 
trine of the Jewish teachers, with which, as Bull observes, 
he was perfectly well acquainted. Having observed, that 
the Jews were not able to drink from the living fountain 
of God, but only from broken cisterns which hold no water, 
he thus proceeds : " These broken cisterns, which hold no 
" water, are those which your own Rabbins have hewn out 
" for you ; as the scripture also expressly says, teaching for 
" doctrines the commandments of men. And moreover. 



? TTie passapfe in the Latin version of the original is as follows : ** Omni 
** IsraelitfE in futuro seculo sors est, sicut dictum est, Et populiis tuus oinnes 
*♦ justi in aeterniim possidebunt teirara. Hi tamen ex Israelitis vitse aeteruae 
*' exsortes cruiit : Qui negat in vitam I'evocaudos esse mortuos : legem esse e 
'* coelo : Epicureus. R. Alkiba ait : Is quoque qui libros extraneos legit : qui 
** adsusurrat plagae haec verba : Omnem jnorbinn qnetn imposui x^gyptiis, 
*' won imponam tihi. Nam ego Dotninns luedens tibi. [Ex. xv. 26. J Abba 
** Schaiil ait : Is quoque, qui nomen [tetragrammaton] suis Uteris pronun- 
** ciat." The difficulties contained in tlie above citation are explained in 
the treatise of Al)arbanel, de Capite Fidei, c. 24. 

•• Quoted bv Munster, and from him bv Bull, Harm. Apost. Diss. H. c. 
17. §.6. 

' Tract, de Poenitcntia, c. '.'>. Rnlli Harm. ibid. 

>' De Res. Mort. I. x. §. 11. 



Supplementary Remarks. 399 

" they deceive themselves and you, while they suppose, 
" that the eternal kingdom icill certainly he given to those 
" sprimg from the seed of Abraham according to the 
^^ Jlesh, even though they be sinners, and infidels, and dis- 
" obedie?it to God ^." 

It remains for ns to shew, that eternal salvation w^as, 
according to the same doctrine, restricted to the indivi- 
duals of the Jewish nation. This indeed might seem only 
a necessary and reasonable deduction from that other te- 
net, which prescribes the observance of the Mosaic law as 
the indispensable condition of eternal life, and of which 
such frequent mention occurs in the writings of St. Paul. 
We will proceed to illustrate from the authority of Jewish 
writers the manner in which this dogma has been enter- 
tained and taught by them. 

The Mishna says, " He who is not circumcised will in- 
" herit hell"^." Juda Zabarah says, " that the resurrection 
" will be peculiar to the Israelites, and that the Gentiles 
^' will not partake in it. This, says he, is agreeable to 
" reason ; for the whole world was created for the sole be- 
" nefit of Israel. Our wise men have said : To him who 
" spoke the word, and the world was made, it was well 
*• known that Adam would sin ; why then did he create 
" Adam? Because a nation in whom he found refresh- 
^' ment (i. e. the Israelites,) would come from him. Our 
" wise men have also said : When the serpent came to 
" Eve, he infused into her his defilement, (by which is to 
" be understood evil concupiscence ',) and therefore her pos- 
" terity were doomed to death. From the Israelites, who 

' Dial, cum Tryph, c. 140, Quoted also by Bull, Harm. Ap. Diss. II. 
c. 17. §.17. 

™ Quoted by Abarbanel. The passage from whence this quotation is taken 
may not improperly be here inserted at length, by reason of the agreement, as 
to various points, with those opinions which it is our purpose to describe. It 
fs as follows : 

" Dico autem ad solutionem istorum," (sc. dubiorum quae prius dicta fue- 
raut,) '* istud Misuse indicare nobis ; quemlibei Israeliiain site paupe- 
" rem, sive dlvitem^ in prceofptis, habiturmn partem in futuro seculo : quia, 
" cum prcestat aliquod prrsceptmn, quod est in potestaie ejus, merebitur 
" summum spirituale prcemlum. Sic enim aiunt cap. 1. Hauoda Zara fol. 
" 17. ad istum, qui quserebat, Quisnam fnturus sum in vita futuri seculi ? 
" Responderunt : Venitne aliquod prceceptum a manu tua ? ad indicandum, 
" quodprcestando unicum pr(S('eptum,sicuti decet, acquir at vitam futuri se- 
'* culi: adeo ut in traditioue eorum Hirurin, cap. 2. fol. 19. extet his verbis; 
'* Qui nan est circumcistis gehennam hcsreditnbit. Ac propterea dicuut : 
" Quilibet Israelitu. hahebit partem in futuro seculo; atque est generale sta- 
*' tutum de omnibus populis, quod vid. omnis, qui appellatvr nomine Is- 
" raelis, merebitur vitam spiritualem." Abarbanel de Capite Fidei, cap. 24. 
p. 114, e ve'rsione Vorstii, Amstel. iC38. 



•100 Supplementary Remarks, 

" stood at the foot of mount Sinai, that is, who received 
" the Law, which is the tree of life, this defilement was 
" taken away, and they were thus made fit for eternal life : 
" the Gentiles, who were not present there, were not 
" cleansed from this defilement, and therefore are unfit for 
" life. The resurrection is therefore wholly confined to 
" the Israelites".'* 

Abarbanel declares it to be a doctrine sanctioned by 
many of the rabbins, that the benefit of the resurrection 
will he confined to the righteous among the Israelites. As 
authorities for this doctrine he mentions the names of 
Maimonideso, Saadias, and Ghasdai ; and it is founded 
upon a saying which occurs in their traditions. That the 
rain of heaven is a common benefit to all men, but the re- 
surrection of the dead pertains only to the righteousV. 

We are not however to disguise the diflference of opinion 
which occurs among the rabbins on this subject. Thus 
the doctrine of Juda Zabarah, as stated above, is laid down 
only as a general rule, with an admission of some excep- 
tions in favour of the pious among the Gentiles. This 
qualification is stated on the authority of Rabbi Judah the 
Saint who compiled the Mishna^. Indeed it is a received 
maxim with some of the rabbins, That the pious among the 
Gentiles will have their portion in the future life. By the 
pious, we are by some of the Jewish doctors taught to un- 
derstand, those who observe the seven precepts, which, ac- 
cording to the Rabbinical traditions, were delivered by God 
to Noah I". Menasseh ben Israel also quotes a book of 
high authority with his nation, in which it is declared, that 
great happiness in a future world will be the portion of 
those who have shewn kindness to the Israelites in their 
captivity^. To pursue the detail of these opinions further 
would not indeed be devoid of general interest, but would 
lead us beyond the limits prescribed by our immediate pur- 
pose. It will suffice to have adduced those authorities 

n P()co(k. Notae Misc. p. 194. 

" Maiinonides is alle/^cd by Menasseh ben Israel fde Res. p. 184.) as main- 
taining the contrary doctrine. The work referred to in both cases is his 
Epistle on the Resurrection. 

p Pocock. Notae Misc. p. 192. i Ibid. p. 194. 

■• Men. ben Is. de Res. II. 9. p. IBIi. The seven precepts are as follows : 
1. Thou shall not worship an idol. 2. Thou shult not kill. 3. Thon shalt 
not commit adultery. 4. Thou shalt not blaspheme the name of God. 5. Thou 
shalt not steal. 6. Thou shalt not eat the limb of a living animal. 7. Thou 
shalt appoint judges to take care that these foregoing precepts be well and di- 
litrently observed. 

• De Res. Mor. II. 9. p. l^^G. 



Supplementary Remarks. 401 

which prove, that the principle which excludes the Gen- 
tiles from the hope of future salvation, is, in its general 
application, a principle which has obtained considerable 
currency among the doctrines of modern Judaism. 

With regard however to the exceptions of the pious 
among the Gentiles^ it will not be amiss to notice a speci- 
men of rabbinical doctrine, which may assist in framing 
an estimate of the standard of piety to which they annex 
so important a distinction from the general doom. Some 
of the Jewish doctors exclude from the hope of eternal 
life all who are ignorant of the Law ', that is, not only the 
Gentiles who are unacquainted with the Mosaic institu- 
tions, but also the uninstructed rabble of their own coun- 
trymen. " This people," said the Pharisees in our Lord's 
time, " who knoweth not the law are cursed *." This rule 
however is not laid down without exceptions in favour of 
those who have contracted some intimate alliance or con- 
nexion with the disciples of the wise : as for instance, if 
a man has given his daughter, with a large dowry, to one 
of them in marriage -, or if he has carried on a trade, giving 
the profits of it to them, in order that they may thus be 
enabled to adhere to the study of the Law without distrac- 
tion ! In such cases, say they, the same righteousness will 
be imputed to them, as if they had themselves been ever so 
much devoted to the immediate service of God. We must 
at least agree with Pococke", from whom we have taken 
the above description, in designating this as a doctrine 
highly beneficial to the preacher. " Quanti doctorum inter- 
" esset hoc a vulgo serio credi !" 

Having thus illustrated the doctrines of the synagogue 
in regard to these four important subjects, we find in them 
a most exact correspondence, or rather identity, with those 
opinions which we said would naturally be generated by 
the doctrine of eternal life in the Law. As the notion of 
that doctrine being contained in the Law is declared to be 
the most fundamental of all Jewish articles of faith, it will 
not be unreasonable to regard such opinions as a super- 
structure raised upon that foundation. They are, in truth, 
nothing but natural and necessary steps in the progress of 
error. We have seen that the Eternity of the Law is de- 
duced from its supposed perfection. Now this perfection 
could never have been ascribed to it, if the truth were once 
admitted respecting its omission of a future state. The 

' John vii. 49. " Notae Misc. p. 195. 

Dd 



402 Supplementary Remarks. 

Law could not in that case have been regarded as a perfect 
dispensation, but must have been estimated according to its 
true character, as the part of a dispensation progressively 
advanchig to that perfection which it was destined after- 
wards to reach. Thus would it have operated, agreeably to 
its design, as an introduction to the Gospel. But how the 
Gospel could possibly be received consistently with the en- 
tertainment of those doctrines which we have just reviewed, 
it is impossible to explain. " If," as an ancient writer 
justly remarks, " the Law of Moses had been competent to 
" give eternal life, in vain did the Saviour himself come 
" into the world and suffer for us^." A new covenant was 
plainly inadmissible to those who believed that the old was 
perfect, eternal, and unchangeable. The meritorious sa- 
crifice of the Cross could never be an article of faith with 
those, who ascribed to the Levitical sacrifices that efficacy 
which belongs to the former only. The faith of a Redeemer 
could not be admitted as the prescribed condition of man's 
justification, by those who thought, that .man could be 
justified before his Maker on account of the works of the 
Law, and who imagined that a ritual, a defective, and a 
partial observance of those works was sufficient for the at- 
tainment of eternal life. Lastly, the Messiah could not be 
received as the author of eternal salvation, without respect 
of persons, to all who come unto him : he could not, I 
say, be received in this character by those, who supposed 
that the benefit of eternal life was by the divine decree, 
limited, with few exceptions, to the seed of Jacob. 

In regard then to these particulars, as we find them 
connected with the person and doctrine of our Redeemer, 
it is plain that Jesus could not, by those whom we have 
described, have been received as the promised Messiah. 
But as the Jews did and do expect a Messiah, it will be 
worth our while to examine the characters and qualities 
which, in agreement with the errors we have already de- 
tailed, they ascribe to him and to his kingdom, as the 
subjects of their expectation. For this is not the least re- 
markable part of that system of erroneous doctrine which 
they connect with their belief in a future state as the doc- 
trine of their Law : and the exposition of it will strengthen 
our conviction of the total repugnance between the truths 
of the Gospel, and the doctrines which were certainly com- 
bined with, and, as we should say, grafted upon, that 

" Clem. Alex, in libro, •* Quis dives salvetur ?" c. 8. 



Supplementary Remarks. 403 

fatal mistake respecting the sanction of the Law. Thus 
will it also satisfy us, that the Gospel could never be em- 
braced while these errors were retained. 

We have seen, then, that the Messiah could not be ex- 
pected by the Jews, as possessing any of those leading 
characters which essentially belong to his office in the 
evangelical scheme. He could not be expected as the Me- 
diator of a New Covenant, because the Old was supposed to 
be eternal and unalterable ; nor as a priest to intercede, 
because the priesthood of the sons of Aaron was regarded 
as adequate to the purpose ; nor as a victim to die, because, 
according to the same scheme, the legal sacrifices had the 
real power and virtue of expiation in themselves ; nor as 
the meritorious procurer of eternal life, because a ritual 
and a very defective obedience to the Law was viewed as 
constituting in itself a meritorious title to that blessing. 
An observation of these circumstances will prepare us for 
any thing wild and extravagant which may occur in the 
notions they formed to themselves of the promised Re- 
deemer of Israel. 

"As to the days of the Messiah,'* says Maimonides^, 
" that is the time, when the kingdom wiU be restored to 
" Israel, and the Israelites will return to Palestine. The 
" Messiah will be a powerful king : Zion will be the me- 
" tropolis of his kingdom : his name will be illustrious and 
" will fill the utmost parts of the earth with its renown : 
" he wDl be greater and richer than Solomon : the nations 
" will enter into peace with him, and the provinces will 
^^ yield obedience to him, on account of his distinguished 
" righteousness, and of the miracles which he will per- 
" formy. If any man shall rise up in rebellion against 
" him, God will destroy that man and deliver him into his 
" hand. Moreover, all the texts of scripture declare both 
^^ the felicity of the Messiah himself, and that which we 
" (the Jews) shall obtain through him. But there will be 
" no change in the nature of things from the state which 
'^ now prevails, except that the kingdom will be with 
" Israel. So our wise men have expressly said, ' There is 
" no difference between the present age and the days of the 
" Messiah, except only the subjugation of the kingdoms.* 
" And under his dominion, some will be stronger, and 

y Another description of the Messiah is given by Basnage from the same 
Maimonides, in which it is said, that the Messiah will not work miracles. 
Hist, des Juifs, 1. v. c. 13. §.3. 

^ Porta Mosis, p. 60. 

D d 2 



^04 Supplementary Remarks. 

*' some weaker than others. But in those days men will 
" enjoy a remarkable facility of obtaining food, so that a 
" man will be able to obtain great riches with the least 
" possible trouble. This is the meaning of the saying, 
" ' It will be that the land of Israel will bring forth sweet 
" cakes and silk garments.' (For it is proverbial with us 
" to say respecting a man who finds any thing with little 
" trouble : ' Such a man has found his bread ready baked, 
"and his meat ready dressed.)' '' Maimonides proceeds 
to censure those by whom the above saying was under- 
stood, according to its literal import, to signify that such 
would actually be the vegetable productions of the earth ; 
in opposition to whom he says, that the labours of agricul- 
ture will still be continued under the Messiah, and alleges 
in proof of both their continuance and their facihty to the 
people of his nation, the following words of Isaiah z; 
-" The sons of the alien shall be your ploughmen and your 
" vinedressers." He then resumes his description after 
the following manner : " But the great felicity of that time 
" will be, that we shall then be liberated from the yoke of 
^' that evil dominion, which keeps us back from the pursuit 
" of every virtue ; and that knowledge will then be multi- 
" plied, as God hath said, ^ For the earth shall be filled 
" with the knowledge of the Lord^^ ;' and that then conten- 
" tions and wars shall be done away, as he hath also said, 
" ' Nation shall not lift up a sword against nation b.' For 
" to them who live at that time shall be granted a full en- 
" joyment of every advantage ^ by which they may attain 
" to the life of a future world. But the Messiah will 
" die, and his son and his posterity will reign after him. 
'' For that he will die God declares (when he says), ' He 
" shall not fail nor be discouraged, till he set judgment in 
" the earth^.' But his reign will be of very long dura- 
" tion, and men will then attain great length of life. For 
" life is prolonged by the removal of grief and sorrow. 
" And it is certainly true, that his reign will last for some 
" thousands of years. For it is said, ' The coalition of 
^^ society among the good cannot easily be dissolved.' But 
" the days of the Messiah are not so much to be desired, 
" either that our corn and wealth may be multiplied, or 
" that we may ride on horses, and drink together to the 
" sound of musical instruments, (as they think who are 



* Isaiah Ixi. 5. " Hab. ii. 14. '» Mic. iv, 3. 

•^^ Literally, that great perfection, by which &c. ^ Isaiah xlii. 4. 



Supplementary Remarks, 405 

" confounded in their understanding) : but the prophets 
" have wished for, and excellent men have eagerly ex- 
" pected, those days, on account of that society of good 
'* men, that virtuous conversation and knowledge, which 
^' will then prevail, and on account of the righteousness of 
" the king [Messiah], and his distinguished knowledge, 
^^ and the near degree in which he is related to his Creator, 
" as God hath said to him, ' Thou art my Son^) :' and be- 
" cause the whole Law of Moses will then be fulfilled with- 
'^ out reluctance, perturbation, or constraint ; as he hath 
" promised, ' They shall not teach every man his neigh- 
" hour, for they shall all know me, from the great of them 
" unto the little of them^:' and ' I will put my law in 
" their hearts:' and ' I will take the stony heart out of 
" your fleshh/ " 

The above description may be considered as a just re 
presentation of prevailing and popular notions entertained 
among the modern Jews respecting the person and dispen- 
sation of their expected Messiah. The high reputation of 
Maimonides as an expositor of Jewish doctrines will jus- 
tify this estimate of it. We ought not at the same time to 
deny the existence among the doctors of the synagogue of 
various and contradictory opinions in relation to this sub- 
ject. The detail of such opinions is given at considerable 
length in Basnage's History of the Jews i. To enumerate 
and describe them further would be useless to our present 
purpose^. It wiU suffice to remark one general quality 
pervading the whole of them : namely, their inconsistency 
with those views, which, as we have said, essentially cha- 

^ Psalm ii. 7. ^ Jer. xxxi. e Ibid, 

h Ezek. xi. 19. ' Liv. v. c. 10, 11, 12, 13, 

^ Some particn]ars,however, relating to these opinions seem too important 
to be omitted. With regard to the qualifications of a prophet, the Jews en- 
tertain the following doctrine : " The spirit of prophecy," say the rabbins, 
" does not dwell except in a man who is wise, powerful, and rich." Maim. 
Mor. Nev. p. 285. Porta Mosis, pp. 14, 83. In the latter of the places re- 
ferred to, powerful is interpreted to signify him who subdues his lusts, and 
rich to have the same meaning with co7ite)ited. If we acquiesce in such in- 
terpretations, there is at least reason to complain of the employment of lan- 
guage which, without a farfetched exposition, necessarily leads to dangerous 
misconception on a subject so important as the discrimination of true and 
false prophets. Again : It is declared by Maimonides to be a fundamental 
principle of the Law, " That temporal dispensatious of happiness and misery 
" are wholly, even to the minutest particulars, determined by God according 
" to the merit or the sin of those whom they befall." More Nev. p. iii. c. 17. 
p. 380. See also cc. 18. and 24. p. 385, 406. It is obvious that these rab- 
binical doctrines, when applied to the person of our Redeemer, must neces- 
sarily contribute to lead the Jews far away from all correct notions of the 
Messiah. 

D d3 



406 Supplementary Remarks, 

racterize the evangelical scheme relating to the person and 
the office of our Redeemer. It is only important to us to 
observe, that such opinions are entertained by those who 
believe the doctrine of a future state to be the doctrine of 
the Mosaic law : since the opinions themselves discover 
that contradiction and hostility to the Gospel, which we 
have said that it would be the tendency of that belief to 
generate, and thus would naturally alienate the minds of 
the Jews from that dispensation, of which the subsequent 
introduction was contemplated and provided for in the 
promulgation of the Law. 

Lastly, It is important to observe, that although the doc- 
trine of a future life is maintained by the Jews to be a 
part- of the Law of Moses, it is nevertheless admitted by 
many of the Jews to have been therein delivered only in 
an obscure and indirect manner. It will not be uninterest- 
ing to inquire into the reasons they assign for its not being 
taught more explicitly. Our own reason for the omission 
of this doctrine is derived from a comparative regard to the 
genius of the two dispensations, the Law and the Gospel : 
the latter affording, by the atonement of a Redeemer, that 
means of human justification which the former does not 
provide. By the Jews, it is plain, that such a reason can- 
not be admitted ; as it is also certain that the fact of omis- 
sion, which it proposes to explain, is denied by them. 
They admit however, that the important doctrine is taught 
in the Pentateuch only in an obscure manner. We now 
therefore proceed to examine the explanations they offer 
relating to the obscurity of its deliverance. A review of 
these explanations will make us sensible of the difficulty, 
of providing any real solution at variance with that which 
we have proposed. It will also enable us more fully to 
perceive the weakness of those considerations with which 
they are ready to satisfy themselves, rather than admit the 
imperfect character and temporary design of their Law. 

It is contended by Manasseh ben Israel, " that though 
" the fundamental and essential article concerning the 
" resurrection of the dead cannot be demonstratively 
" proved from the books of Moses, it may however be 
" deduced from them in the way of probable inference^.'* 
But as it is contended by the Sadducees and others that 

'' '* Ex his omnibus liquet, loca nonnulla in lihris Mosaicis rcperiri, ex 
" quibus licet apodicticis deinonstratiouibus fundamcntalis ct essentialis arti- 
"• cuius de resurrectione mortuomm probari non possit : verisimiliter tamen 
'* ex lis evincitur." Lib. i. c. 1. 



Supplementary Remarks, 407 

the sanction of the Law is only temporal ; and that the 
doctrine of a future life is in the highest degree impro- 
bable, because the Law makes no mention of it : he feels 
himself called upon to explain the reasons why this doc- 
trine is not clearly and openly propounded in the Law. 

In order to this, he presents to his reader an account of 
the several opinions which have been given upon the sub- 
ject by the eminent doctors of the synagogue who had 
treated the matter before him. Of the most remarkable of 
these opinions we proceed to give an abstract^. 

The first is that of Maimonides, who says, that the re- 
wards and punishments of a future life are not certainly 
and specifically declared in the Law, because it is the will 
of God, that love, and not the hope of a reward, should be 
the motive of our service : and that the blessings annexed 
by the Law to obedience are designed only as helps to 
the attainment of eternal life, in the way of liberating the 
mind from that distraction by which men would otherwise 
be drawn aside in their progress to it. The same doctor 
gives a different explanation of the matter as follows. All 
the prophets have clearly foretold the blessings of the 
Messiah's reign, because they clearly understood the na- 
ture of them : but respecting the glorified state of the soul 
they have been silent, because they could not mentally ap- 
prehend them, and it would have been wrong to extenuate 
the felicity of that state by faint and inadequate descrip- 
tions. 

Our next explainer is Aben Ezra. He says, that the re- 
ward of a future life cannot without much difficulty be 
comprehended ; that the Law was given, not for the wise 
only, but also for the vulgar and ignorant ; in adapting its 
provisions to the capacities of the latter, those rewards 
were therefore chosen for a sanction, which all could un- 
derstand ; but that the nature of immortal happiness was 
a recondite doctrine, which the wise and learned were to 
gather from various passages of it. 

The rabbis Bahye the Elder and Moses Gerundensis 
have treated the matter vtdth a ridiculous ingenuity. They 
teach, that the immortal happiness of the soul is an effect 
of nature and necessity, insomuch that many w^ho were 
strangers to the Law, have attained a conviction of it by 
the mere exercise of their natural reason -, that the Law 

' They are taken from his treatise De Res. Mort. I. c. 13. 
D d4 



408 Supplementary Remarks, 

has therefore made no mention of it, because it promises 
those things which exceed the order of nature, and take 
effect only by the interposition of a special providence : 
for of this latter character were the rewards and punish- 
ments dispensed under the theocracy of Israel. 

The last mentioned rabbi proposes another solution of 
the question, in which he has the concurrence of Joseph 
Albo. It is as follows. Eternal rewards belong not to 
the Law, because they are to be awarded on a personal re- 
gard to the actions of individuals ; whereas the sanctions 
of the Law^ applied universally to the nation at large, or at 
least collectively to distinct portions or bodies of it. Thus, 
if the majority of the people were obedient to the Law, the 
whole would enjoy the reward which the Law promises, 
and the wicked would participate with the good : if the 
majority were transgressors, the whole would be punished, 
and the good would be involved in the suffering of the 
wicked. 

The next explanation seems to be that of Menasseh 
himself. He supposes that temporal rewards and punish- 
ments were chosen as the sanction of the Law in order to 
secure a more extensive obedience, because they have 
commonly more influence on the conduct of mankind than 
future ; temporal and sensible enjoyments being for the 
most part more inviting than those which are distant and 
spiritual. 

There are two remaining explanations, which are cer- 
tainly more respectable than those which we have already 
seen. Their value consists however rather in explaining 
why the temporal sanction was employed, than why the 
future was omitted. The first is that of the rabbis Nissim, 
Joseph x'\lbo, and Judah the Levite. The purport of it is, 
that temporal sanctions were employed for the purpose of 
reclaiming or preserving men from idolatry : since the 
reality and supremacy of the true God were thus disco- 
vered by special and regular manifestations of his power : a 
purpose for which the rewards of a future and invisible 
world would have been in no degree available. The evi- 
dence of a providence being thus supplied, the expectation 
of future rewards for the righteous would, it is contended, 
be the natural consequence resulting from the belief 
of it. 

''J'he other explanation is that of the rabbi Saadias, and 
is similar to the last, as well as concurrent in purport with 



Supplementary Remarks. 409 

a quotation from Maimoiiicles, which we shall afterwards 
have occasion to adduce"^. 

23. 6. 
" Ye shall not add unto the word which I command 
" you, neither shall you diminish ought from it, that ye 
" may keep the commandments of the Lord your God 
" which I command you." Deut. iv. 2. The purport of 
these words appears to be nothing else than a prohibition 
of interpolating or mutilating the text of the written law, 
or of making any additions to it after the manner of those 
cabalistical traditions, to which, though they sometimes 
plainly contradict the written law, the Jews have ascribed 
an authority equal to it. Warburton, however, seems dis- 
posed to deduce from it the unlawfulness of believing a 
future state, because that doctrine is not expressly taught 
in the Law. The absurdity of this interpretation can only 
be equalled by that of another writer, who was the subject 
of great and undue admiration with that distinguished pre- 
late ', I mean Maimonides, who so alleges the same words 
in proof of the eternal and unchangeable nature of the 
Law, as must at once, if his construction of them be ad- 
mitted, be decisive against the pretensions of Christianity". 

24. 20. and 25. 10. 

With regard to the two classes of persons here men- 
tioned by Warburton as supporters of the doctrine opposed 
to his own, I think it important to offer a few remarks. 

The first are the ancient Christian writers. Whether 
they can justly be said to have held the doctrine of a fu- 
ture state to be the most essential part of the Mosaic Law, 
is I think more than doubtful. The true state of the case 
will, if 1 mistake not, after due examination, prove to be as 
follows : namely, that they held this doctrine to be both re- 
cognised and countenanced, but not explicitly and directly 
taught, in the Pentateuch : and this I hold to have been 
also the constant opinion of all moderate and impartial 
persons. Considerable allowance must of course be made, 
in a statement of this kind, for that great diversity of cha- 
racter which occurs in the writers thus referred to : but I 
think it would be difficult to produce a single passage from 
the catholic writers of the early centuries of the Christian 

'» Suppl. Rem. on page 153. 1. 25. " For. Mos. p. Q6. 



410 Supplementary Remarks. 

church which can be fairly construed into a proof of the 
contrary. 

The second class are the unbelieving Jews : with regard 
to whom the statement of Warburton appears to be true 
to its fullest extent. The existence of this opinion among 
them is sufficiently proved by the testimonies we have 
lately adduced ; and its antiquity will be equally apparent 
from a remarkable passage in Josephus, which we quoted 
on a former occasion o. The nature of the proofs which 
they offer in support of this opinion is well deserving of 
our attention : since we shall thus be enabled to estimate 
the truth and justice of the charge which has been brought 
against them, of doing violence to the sacred text for the 
purpose of eliciting from it this important doctrine. 

Among the scriptural passages which they allege from 
the Pentateuch for this pui'pose, the following are some of 
the most remarkable. 

Maimonides professes to establish the doctrine of future 
rewards on these words : " That it may go well with thee, 
^' and that thou mayest prolong thy days P.'' But he con- 
fesses that they are not available for his purpose without 
the aid of cabalistical interpretation q. 

Another text adduced by the same writer '■, is the follow- 
ing : *^ Yet now, if thou wilt, forgive their sin : and if not, 
" blot me, I pray thee, out of thy book which thou hast 
" written. And the Lord said unto Moses, Whosoever 
^' hath sinned against me, him will I blot out of my 
" bookK'' 

" And the Lord commanded us to do all these statutes, 
" to fear the Lord our God, for our good always, that he 
" might preserve us alive, as it is at this day*.'* These 
words are understood by Maimonides to express both the 
temporal and eternal reward of obedience". 

» Pages 282 and 392. 

p Deut. iv. 40. The whole verse is as follows : " Thou shalt keep there- 
" fore his statutes, and his commaudmcnts, which 1 command thee this day, 
** that it may go well with thcc, and with thy children after thee, and that 
'* thou mayest prolong thy days upon the earth, which the Lord thy God 
'• giveth thee, for ever." 

1 " Hoc est quod dixit Deus, Ut bene sit tibi, el prolonges dies: cujus 
" dicti explicationem traditione accepimus, lit bene sit tibi, in seculo quod 
** totum est honum, et prolonges dies, in seculum quod totum est longum." 
Por. Mos. pp. 58, 59. 

"■ Por. Mos. p. GC). " Exod. xxxii. .32, 33. ' Deut. vi. 24. 

" The application of them to this subject will be best understood from his 
own words : <* Ejus, quod hie ait, Ut bene sit nobis omnibus diebus, sensus est. 



Supplementary Remarks, 411 

The rabbi Tanchum builds on the foundation of these 
words : *^ Which if a man do, he shall live in them^." He 
also cites the authority of Onkelos, who thus paraphrases 
them : " Which if a man do, he shall through them have 
" eternal life^ quae si fecerit homo, vivet per ea vita seter- 
" nay." 

The rabbi Simon ben lohay deduces the resurrection of 
the dead from these words : " In the sweat of thy face 
" shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; 
" for out of it wast thou taken : for dust thou art, and unto 
" dust shalt thou return^/' Of this text he gives the fol- 
lowing paraphrase: ^^ Thou art now dust, O Adam, and 
" with that dust thou shalt again be clothed at the time 
" of the resurrection of the dead^!" 

The rabbi Simai professes to give an evident demonstra- 
tion of the resurrection from the promise of God that he 
would give the land of Canaan to the patriarchs Abraham, 
Isaac, and Jacob ^ : for it is to be observed that the pro- 
mise is not only to the seed of Abraham, but to Abraham 
himself^. Now as Abraham did not possess that land, it 
is contended that a resurrection must be necessary in order 
to realize the promise d. 

We need not proceed further in the citation of texts and 
arguments, since the above will answer every purpose as a 
specimen of the whole. Those who vrish to pursue the 
inquiry further will find a long enumeration of texts in 
Warburton^, and a number of scriptural citations, together 
with the reasonings which have been framed upon them by 
the eminent doctors of the Jewish nation, in the treatise of 
Menasseh ben Israel on the Resurrection f. 

It would be a waste of time to remark, what must occur 
to every mind not blinded with religious delusion, the very 
defective nature of the arguments thus offered. The learn- 
ed Jew to whom we last referred is compelled to acknow- 
ledge, that the passages which he has cited from the Pen- 
tateuch afford only a probable evidence, not a demonstra- 

*' Ut pervenias in mu7idum, qui totus bonus est et longus,qa3i est subsisten- 
*' tia perpetua et seterna. Quod vero ait, Ui vivificaret nos sicut hodie, id in- 
*' telligitur de subsistentia corporali prima, quae ad tempus tantum durat.'* 
More Nev. p. iii. c. 27. p. 4 18. 

* Lev. xviii. 5. y Pocock. Not. Mis. p. ]61. ^ Gen. iii. 19. 

a Men. ben. Is. de Res. Mor. I. 1. §. 2. ^ Ex. vi. 3, 4. 

<= Gen. xvii. 8. xxviii. 4. ^ Men. ben. Is. I. i. §. 4. 

« Div. Leg. vi. §. 3. vol. v. p. 414. They are taken from the work of 
Menasseh ben Israel. ^ Lib. 1. cap. 1. 



4 1 2 Supplementary Remarks. 

live proofs; and therefore feels himself called upon to as- 
sign the reasons why a doctrine so important as that of a 
future retribution should not be taught in a more direct 
and perspicuous manner. Of these reasons we have al- 
ready taken a review h. 

Having seen the nature of the arguments employed, 
and of the reasons assigned, for the obscure and imperfect 
discoveries of the Law x)n this vital subject, our surprise 
at finding that the doctrine of a future state is still main- 
tained to have been the most essential part of the Mosaic 
dispensation, must now be rather enhanced than dimi- 
nished. But in order to explain so great an apparent in- 
consistency, we have only to consider what are the sources 
of information from which, according to Jewish notions, a 
just estimate of that dispensation is to be drawn. 

We find then that the Law which was given by God to 
Moses is declared by the Jews to have been of two kinds, 
the Written and the Oral. By the Written they understand 
that which is contained in the Pentateuch. By the Oral, 
that which, as they contend, was orally delivered by God 
to Moses, which was in like manner communicated by 
Moses to the Israelites, and afterwards transmitted to pos- 
terity and perpetuated in the traditions of the Jewish 
chm-ch. The manner in which these traditions are de- 
duced from the time of Moses would furnish the subject 
of a curious and interesting narrative, but the description 
would lead us astray from our purpose i. It will suffice to 
say, that the Mishna and the Talmud are regarded by the 
Jews as the authentic depositories of them : and that the 
doctrine of future rewards and punishments is clearly de- 
livered in those compilations as a part of the Law delivered 
by God to Moses. 

We have said that these traditions carry with them, in 
the estimation of the Jews, an authority equal to that of 
the written Law. It will therefore not be improper to 
subjoin a few particulars which may serve to illustrate at 
once the value which the Jews attach to them, and, on the 
other hand, that to which they are justly entitled. 

The eighth foundation of the Law declares, that the 
Law was given from heaven ; and this is made by Mai- 
monides to include both the written Law and the tradi- 



B The words of the original are quoted page 406". •' Page 407. 

» It is to be found in the Porta Mosis, sub init. 



Supplementary Hemarks, 413 

tional expositions of it, embracing the minutest particulars 
in the doctrines of the modern rabbins ; all of which are 
maintained to be exactly framed according to the form 
which God prescribed to Moses. In Hke manner, the 
ninth foundation asserts the eternity of the Law ; and this 
is likewise expounded to comprehend the traditional to- 
gether with the written Law, both of which are said to be 
protected from change and abrogation by these words : 
" Ye shall not add unto the word which 1 command you, 
'^ neither shall you diminish ought from it^." 

The same writer quotes from the Talmud a declaration, 
that not even Elijah the prophet had authority to take 
away aught from the eighteen precepts which were sanc- 
tioned by the two schools of Hillel and Shammai"^. We 
are here to observe, that the concurrent decisions of these 
schools are regarded as a part of the traditionary or oral 
Law : and that the traditionary Law itself is understood to 
comprise, not only those precepts which the Jews profess 
to have received in their present state from Moses by tra- 
ditional conveyance, but also a vast multitude of others 
deduced from the former in the way of inference, and of 
others successively deduced after the same manner, as oc- 
casions might arise which rendered them necessary, from 
the precepts which had been formerly received. The prin- 
ciples on which these deductions are formed are contained, 
as Maimonides tells us^ in thirteen rules or modes of rea- 
soning ; which rules, as the Jews teach, were delivered to 
Moses on Mount Sinai '^. In the application of these prin- 
ciples, when a controversy arose, the question was decided 
by the majority of opinions o, and such majority w^as sup- 
posed to convey the infalhble sense of the Divine Law P. 
This was carried so far, that in settling the traditionary 
Law, a prophet was not admitted to have any higher au- 
thority than any other person qualified to assist in these 
decisions. In this respect, Joshua and Phineas were of 
no higher authority than Rabina and Rab Ashe, the com- 
piler of the Talmud<l. " If a thousand prophets," says 
Maimonides, ^' all of whom were equal to Elijah and Eli- 
'^ sha, were to propose an interpretation [of the Law], 
" and a thousand and one wise men were to propose an- 
" other and a different interpretation, we must incline to 



• Deut. iv. 2. Maim. Por. Mos. pp. 65, 66. 

™ Maim. Poy. Mos. p. 24. " lb. p. 11. 

° Ibid. pp. 11, 19. P Ibid. p. 11. i Ibid. p. 



414 Supplementary Remarks. 

" the greater number : the opinion of the thousand and 
*^ one wise men, and not that of the thousand illustrious 
" prophets is to be followed ^" 

The traditions thus obtained are regarded as affording 
the infallible key to the interpretation of the written Law. 
This is carried to a great extent. The Law, for example, 
denounces in the case of a particular transgression, the 
cutting off' of the offender's hand^. The punishment thus 
denounced is declared by the traditionary Law to signify 
nothing more than a disgraceful mulct. " Now if," says 
Maimonides, " a prophet should arise who interpreted this 
'^ precept of the Law, according to its literal meaning, to 
" signify the actual abscission of the hand 5 if he were to 
" allege the authority of a prophet, and plead a revelation 
" from God : nevertheless he is to be strangled as a false 
" prophet. Nor," continues he, '^ should it avail that pro- 
^' phet if he should work a miracle in proof of his words ; 
" since Moses, the great prophet who astonished the world 
" with his miracles, hath long ago declared to us, that no 
" other Law should ever proceed from God than that which 
" he delivered M" 

The above may serve to illustrate the justice of that ac- 
cusation in which the Scribes and Pharisees are charged 
by our Lord with making the commandment of God of 
none effect through their tradition^. 

' Maim. For. Mos. p. 19. « Deut. xxv. 12. 

* Ibid. p. 13. ITie substance of the passage, and not a literal translation, 
is given above. 

" The account whicli has been given above of the Jewish traditions will be 
found remarkably coincident with that conveyed in the passage of the Gospel 
here referred to. *' Then came together unto him the Pharisees, and certain 
** of the Scribes, which came from Jerusalem. And when they saw some of 
** his disciples eat bread with defiled, that is to say, with unwashen, hands, 
*' they found fault. For the Fbarisees, and all the Jews, except they wash 
" their hands oft, eat not, holding the tradition of the elders. And when they 
** come from the market, except they wash, they eat not. And many other 
** things there be, which they have received to hold, as the washing of cups, 
*' and pots, brasen vessels, and of tables. Then the Pharisees and Scribes 
** asked him. Why walk not thy disciples according to the tradition of the 
<* elders, but eat bread with unwashen hands .•' He answered and said unto 
** them. Well hath Esaias prophesied of you hypocrites, as it is written. This 
** people honoureth me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. How- 
** beit in vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments 
<* of men. For laying aside the commandment of God, ye hold the tradition 
** of men, as the washing of pots and cups : and many other such like things 
*< yc do. And he said unto tlicm, Full well ye reject the commandment of 
" God, tliat ye may keep your own tradition. For Moses said, Honour thy 
** fatlicr and thy mother; and. Whoso curscth father or mother, let him die 
*' the death : but ye say. If a man shall say to his father or mother. It is 
" (Jorban, that is to say, a gift, by whatsoever thou mightest be profited by 



Supplementary Remarks. 415 

It will be useful to state a few particulars which may 
serve to display the extent of that veneration which the 
Jews entertain^ both for their traditions, and for the doc- 
tors by whom those traditions were delivered. With this 
view the following are selected from Basnage^. One of these 
doctors was the rabbi Akiba, who underwent a ci-uel death 
by order of the emperor Adrian. His precepts are record- 
ed in the Mishna. To him they ascribe a knowledge so 
profound, that it was owned to be a departure from life to 
deviate from his decisions. Moses, say they, foresaw by 
the help of God, that this Akiba would be more holy than 
himself. He therefore asked God, Why he did not prefer 
Akiba to carry his Law to the people ? But God answered. 
That the birth of Akiba was remote, and that he could not 
wait so long to make known his Law to the people. The 
rabbi Bechai maintains, that the oral Law, which he de- 
clares to be contained in the six orders of the Talmud, is 
the foundation of the written Law, A popular maxim of 
the rabbins contains the following lesson : " Learn to re- 
" gard the words of the scribes with greater attention than 
" the words of the Law." Another rabbin assures us that 
" the Oral, and not the Written Law, is the foundation of 
'^ religion." A writer in the Jerusalem Talmud declares, 
" that the words of the wise are more lovely than those of 
" the prophets." Again : " There is no peace," says the 
Talmud, " for the consciences of those who forsake the 
" study of the Talmud for that of the Bible." The Mishna 
declares, '' that those who sin against the words of the wise 
" are more guilty than those who violate the precepts of 
'^ the Law. " The Jews," says the writer from whom we 
have extracted the foregoing particulars, '' obstinately per- 
" sist in preferring the Talmud to the holy Scripture. They 
" compare the Scripture to water, and tradition to excel- 
" lent wine. The Law, say they, is salt; the Mishna is 
" pepper ; and the Talmuds are precious aromatics. They 
" boldly maintain, that he who sins against Moses may be 
*^ pardoned, but that he who contradicts the doctors is de- 
" serving of death!" 

The following considerations will contribute to illustrate 

*' me ; he shall be free. And ye suflFer him no more to do ought for his fa- 
** ther or his mother ; making the word of God of none eflfect through your 
*' tradition, which ye have delivered : and many such like things do ye." 
Mark vii. 1 — 13. 

X Hist, des Juifs, liv. iii. c. 6. §. 12, 13. 



416 Supplementary Remarks, 

still further the delusion of a people by whom the tenets 
which have now been described are entertained. 

In the traditions of the Jews w^e find an authority ac- 
knowledged which is professedly coordinate with that of 
the written word. We may add, that it is virtually para- 
mount to it : since it is supposed to supply the true inter- 
pretation of the written Law, and that interpretation is 
oftentimes flatly contradictory to its grammatical construc- 
tion. " By the help of this distinction between the Writ- 
" ten and the Oral Law," as Basnage justly observes, " they 
" make God say what they please, and give a divine au- 
" thority to their imaginations. It was in their doctors' 
*^ power to multiply the commandments, and vary them 
^' according to their caprice, and the people could not dis- 
^' obey them guiltless, from the moment they were per- 
" suaded that their heads were the secret depositaries of 
'' the will of the Almighty." Now it may reasonably be 
demanded of the 5qw, Where do you find in the written 
Law a recognition of this authority, which, as you pre- 
tend, was designed always to subsist in union and alUance 
with its own ? To this question, however difficult the so- 
lution of it might at first be thought, an answer is pro- 
vided by Maimonides, who alleges the following text as 
declaring the authority of the Jewish traditions : '^ The 
" word is very nigh unto thee, in thy mouth, and in thy 
" heart, that thou mayest do ity." Li thy mouth, being 
thus understood to describe the Oral Law delivered to 
Moses ; and in thy heart, those precepts which have been 
deduced by reasoning from the Law or from traditions pre- 
viously received^." 

The excellence of this method of traditionary instruc- 
tion is asserted by Maimonides, on a ground no less re- 
markable than the proof of its authority. He extols it as 
an excellent safeguard against a host of evils, such as cor- 
ruptions of the written texts, doubt, dissension, schism, 
and erroneous interpretation^! 

y Deut. XXX. 14. 

^ ** Hoc est quod elicit, Non est in ccelis ipsa ut dicas, Quis ascendet pro 
*^ nobis in coelnm, &c. Et quod dicit, In corde tuo, et in ore tuo, hoc in- 
" nuens, ve! sententias quae ore traduntur, vel conclusiones quae speculatione 
" (una ex potentiis e corde oriundis) eliciuntur, quibus etiam aliquid vel addi 
** vel detralii vetuit, dicens, Non addes illi, neque diminues de eo" Por. Mos. 
p. 13. 

a " Nosti, Talmud ipsum inter nos receptum, olim non fuisse in c'ertnm li- 
" brnm digestum, propter rationem illam, quae turn passim obtinebat in gente 



Supplementary Ile?riaj/{s. 4 I 7 

To sum up the whole. As we have seenthiit tlie Jewish 
traditions are regarded by that people as constituting a 
part of the Law of Moses equally sacred and authoritative 
with the written word ; and that these traditions are con- 
tained in the Mishna and the Talmud, in both of which 
the doctrine of future rewards and punishments is most 
explicitly declared : we may thus be satisfied respecting 
the truth of Warburton's position, " that this doctrine is 
" maintained by the Jews to have made the most essen- 
" tial part of the Mosaic dispensation." This is in fact 
nothing more than a paraphrase of the words of Maimo- 
nides, who says, that " the resurrection of the dead is the 
^^ foundation of foundations of the Law of ^Moses^." 

28. IG. 
Though I have said that the difference, in point of religion, 
between the Israelite and the Gentile was wholly favourable 
to the Israelite : I am aware that the biydensome, labo- 
rious, and expensive requisitions of the Mosaic ritual, from 
which the Gentiles Avere exempt, may be alleged as an ex- 
ception to the truth of this remark. In reference to this 
subject, the following remark of Maimonides is strikiiig, 
and, with some abatement, appears to be just. " The 
" Law of Moses was given for no other reason than in 
" order to diminish the laborious offices connected with 
" the ceremonies of religion. If there be any thing in it 
" which wears the appearance of trouble and fatigue, this 
" is wholly occasioned by our ignorance of the rites and 
" customs prevailing in the world at the time of its deli- 
" very. For, consider how great is the difference be- 
" tween him who offered a burnt offering of his own son 
^' in honour of his god, and him who offered a similar 
" offering of a dove in the service and honour of our 



*' nostra; Verba, quee divi tlbi me, noji licet tibi scriptn fUvulgare. Atcjue 
*' haec fuit summa sapieutia circa legem nostrara, qua fugiebantur ct vita- 
" bantur ilia, in quae sequentibus temporibiis iucidit; Varietatcs nempe, et 
" perplexitates sententiarum ac opinionum, Dnbia item, quae oriri soleut ex 
*' sermone scripto, et in librum reluto, quibus accednnt Errores, qui a scripto- 
" ribus et librariis facillime committuntur, ex quibus postea oriuutnr inter 
<< homines dissensioues, controversiae, schisraata, ct sectae, in uegotiis et 
" commerciis magna confusio." More Nev. P, 1. c. / 1. p. \[V2. 

»> For. Mos. p. 60. 

^ We should not omit to notice, in the doctrine of the Jews respecting 
their traditions, another cause which would materially obstruct the reception 
of our blessed Lord among the Jews, as their expected Messiah ; since they 
expected that the Messiah would confirm by his authority the tradition of the 
elders. See Basnage, Hist, des Juifs, 1. v. c. 10. §. 1.). 

E e 



4 1 8 Sup2)lementary Remarks, 

** God," &c. In confirmation of this reasoning, he refers 
to Mic. vi. 3. Jer. ii. 5. and '61^^. 

60. 4. 

Among the writers here referred to we may mention 
Mr. Addison c, Josephus the Jewish historian f, Origen§, 
and Cudworthh. Cicero seems to speak of the fact as 
having had considerable influence in generating the uni- 
versal belief of a future state, and to regard it as an admo- 
nition of nature suggesting to mankind the survival of the 
soul'. Plato mentions, as a matter of undoubted certainty, 
apparitions of departed spirits, haunting sepulchres and 
monuments of the dead, and contends that the visible qua- 
lity of such apparitions is owing to the adhesion of gross 
matter contracted by sensual defilement while the sovil was 
united with the body'^. The most surprising circumstance 
in relation to this matter is an admission of the reality of 
such appearances by professed atheists, such as Demo- 
critns and Epicurus, together with the most awkward at- 
tempts to elude the inference which obviously flows from 
it. It will not be unappropriate if we here subjoin a few 
remarks from two of the distinguished writers whom we 
have just named. 

" I think," says Addison, " a person who is thus terri- 
" fied with the imagination of ghosts and spectres much 
" more reasonable than one wlio, contrary to the report of 
" all historians sacred and profane, ancient and modern, 
" and to the traditions of all nations, thinks the appear- 
" ance of spirits fabulous and groundless : could not I give 
" myself up to this general testimony of mankind, t should 
" to the relations of particular persons who are now liv- 
" ing, and whom I cannot distrust in other matters of fact. 
" I might here add, that not only the historians, to whom 
*' we may join the poets, but likewise the philosophers, of 
*<^ antiquity have favoured this opinion. Lucretius himself, 
'^ though by the course of his philosophy he was obliged 
'* to maintain that the soul did not exist separate from the 

•' Mor. Ncv. p. iii. c. 47. p. 490. '^ Spectator, No. 110. 

* Aritiq. Jud. 1. xvii. c. 1.'?. §. 4, .'>. Qnoted in the above-cited paper of 
the Spectator. 

t C.ont. C'els. ii. 60. »' Intell. Syst. p 700. cd. Ifi/B. 

• " (jni nondum ea quae multis post aurii.s tractari coepissent Physica di- 
*' dieisseiit, tantum sibi persuaserant, quantum naiura udmnnente cognove- 
" runt: rationes ct cansas rerum non tenebant; visia qnihusdom stppe 7no- 
" vchantur, hlsqne maximis vnc/umis, uf r'uhrcntur hi qui vita t.rce.sserant 
it rivrrey Tnsc. Disp. I. l.'i. 

" Fha!don,c.30. 



Supplementary Remarks, 419 

*' body, makes no doubt of the reality of apparitions, and 
" that men have often appeared after their death. This I 
" think very remarkable ; he was so pressed with the mat- 
" ter of fact which he could not have the confidence to 
" deny, that he was forced to account for it by one of the 
" most absurd unphilosophical notions that was ever start- 
" ed. He tells us, that the surfaces of all bodies are per- 
" petually flying off from their respective bodies one after 
" another -, and that these surfaces or thin cases that in- 
" eluded each other whilst they were joined in the body 
" like the coats of an onion, are sometimes seen entire 
" when they are separated from it ; by which means we 
" often behold the shapes and shadows of persons who are 
'- either dead or absent^" 

" In the last place," says Cud worth, *^' we shall observe 
" that Democritus was yet farther convinced, by these re- 
" lations of apparitions ; so as to grant that there was a 
" certain kind of permanent beings and independent upon 
" imagination, superior to men, which could appear in dif- 
" ferent forms, and again disappear at pleasure, called by 
" him idols or images ; he supposing them to be of the 
" same nature with those exuvious effluxes that stream 
" continually from the surface of bodies : only he would 
" not allow them to have any thing immortal at all in 
" them, but their concretions to be at length all dissolv- 
" able, and their personahties then to vanish into nothing. 
"Thus Sextus the philosopher"^: Democritus affirrneth, 
•' that there are certain idols or spectres that do often ap- 
^' proach to men ^ some of which are beneficent and some 
" maleficent. Upon which account he ivisheth that it tniqht 
" be his good hap to meet with fortunate idols. Ayid he 
" addeth, that these are of a vast bigness, and very lon- 
" geve^ but not incorruptible, and that they sometimes do 
^' fore-signijie unto men future events, both visibly ap- 
" pearing to them, and sending forth audible voyces. Now 
" though Democritus were much blamed for this conces- 
" sion of his by his fello^v atheists, as giving thereby too 
'^ great an advantage to theists, yet in his own opinion 
" did he sufficiently secure himself against the danger of 
" a God from hence, by supposing all these idols of his to 
" be corruptible, they being indeed nothing but certain 
^^ finer concretions of atoms, a kind of aerial and ethereal 
" animals, that were all body, and without any immortal 

' Spectator, .No. 1 10. "> " Adv. Math. p. 311." 

E e 2 



420 Snpplementan/ Remarks. 

*' soul, as lie supposed men also to be : so that a God could 
** be no more proved from them than from the existence 
" of men. For thus he adds in Sextus : Men in ancient 
" times having a sense of these apparitions or idols, fell from 
" thence into the opinio?! of a God : although there be he- 
" sides these idols, no other God, that hath an incorruptible 
" nature""," 

The words of Cicero are : " Quod Uteris extet, Phere- 
" cydes Syrius primum dixit hominum animos esse sempi- 
" ternos.'' On this word, sempiternos, Warburton observes, 
" that it properly signifies a past, as well as future eter- 
" nity ;'' in support of which construction he cites the au- 
thority of Donatus. In this sense, he contends that it 
is here employed : and that the meaning of Cicero is, to 
allege the name of Pherecydes as the first who ascribed 
thi^ kind of eternity to the soul. But whatever be the 
primary meaning of the word, I think it evident that Cicero 
did not so employ it in this place : because, but a short 
time before in the same discourse, he uses it twice in a 
sense from which the notion of a past eternity is plainly 
excludedP, and it is quite unreasonable to suppose that he 
should so soon employ the same term again in a different 
sense, without annexing any remark as to the change of 
signification whicli he attached to it. 

88. 15. 
The great principle by which the courage of Socrates 
was supported at the approach of death, appears, in truth, 
to have been no other than that which has frequently 
prompted the commission of suicide : that is to say, he 
seems to have been influenced by a deep and deliberate 
conviction, that death, as the less of two evils, was far pre- 
ferable, under his circumstances, to the continuance of life. 
This viev.' of the subject is fully warranted by the narrative 
of Xenophon ; which is also, as to some material points, 
confirmed by the less credible testimony of Plato. We 
find him, in this narrative, contemplating with mournful 
sentiments, the approaching infirmities of old age : the de- 
cay of his sight and hearing, his memory and other facul- 
ties ; the near prospect of a time when life would be barren 
of enjoyment ; the pains of sickness and the tedious infir- 
mities which commonly precede the dissolution of the 

" lutcU. System, p. 70L r SecTusc. Dif>p. I. c. .^. 



Supplementary Remarks. 421 

body. With these feelings, he regards the death which 
awaits him from the sentence of his judges, as more de- 
sirable than that which he must otherwise expect in the 
ordinary course of things. These considerations appear 
moreover to have been strengthened by the alhance of 
others, springing from the vanity of that character which 
TertuUian has ascribed to him, gioricB animal. Having 
reached an advanced time of life without the experience of 
those evils which are commonly attendant on the decay of 
nature, he considers it more creditable to his future fame, if 
he were to pass off the scene while enjoying the full vigour 
of his mind, than if he were to wait the arrival of that 
season, when the weakness of his understanding might 
betray itself at the last hour in acts derogatory from the 
dignity of his philosophical character. Actuated by these 
motives and principles^, we find him, at his trial, stu- 
diously exasperating his judges by the introduction of 
topics which he knew would be offensive ; dwelling in an 
egotistical and arrogant manner on his virtues, his wis- 
dom, and the important services he had rendered to his 
country ,• and on the whole, observing just that kind of be- 
haviour which might be expected from a man, who throws 
away life as a thing in which he has no pleasure. How 
little indeed his fortitude was invigorated by a confidence 
of immortal life, we may judge from the following circum- 
stance. Death, he observes, must be either the same thing 
with annihilation, or it must be, according to the common 
opinion, the passage of the soul into a different state of ex- 
istence ; but even on the lowest supposition, if it be re- 
garded as the total annihilation of consciousness, still the 
change must be a prodigious advantage to him who under- 
goes it ^ This last particular is the more remarkable as 
coming from Plato, who endeavours on all occasions to 
make the most of the supposed persuasion of Socrates re- 
specting the immortality of the soul. 



'J Thus Xenophon acknowledges, that the bold and dignified style [[/,iya.Xn- 
yo^ia) of his defence might justly be esteemed foolish, if it be not regarded as 
proceeding from a conviction that death was preferable to life. The follow- 
ing passage is to the same effect : 'Offuv vc/u,iZ,M Tiru^^tjfuvcct KaXojv Kut 'jrccga. huv 

x,cci 'Ttoc^ oLvS^wTTitiv^ xa.1 riv iyca ^a^av i;ia> -rifi if/,auTOVf TATTHN ANA<I>AINI1N 
EI BAPTNn. TOTS AIKA2TAX, ai^'/i^oy.at 7i>,iVTttv f^ctXXov, >j aviXiv^i^us ro Xnv 
iTi "^^offaireuv, ki^kvoh tov toXv X^'i'^ l^'"^ avT/ ^avocrou. And again : "^uK^aryii 
li AIA TO MEFAATNEIN 'EATTON £v tm h^tcurTyi^n.', tUeONON EnAFOME- 
N02, MAAAON KATAM'HfDiSASGAl 'EATTOT EnoIHSE roui liKO.ara.i. 
Apol. Soc. Cf. Platonis Apoll. cc. 17, IR, 26. 
"■ Plat. Ap. Socr. c. 32. ed. Forster. 

EC 3 



422 Supplementitry Re/nar/cs. 

89. Note ^. 
What is here alleged from Athenaeus is grounded on 
an emendation of the text, of which the necessity nmst be 
obvious on the sHghtest consideration. The words re- 
ferred to are as follows. AAAoj h (puTiv, co$ avayyovg 6 Fog- 
yia^ Tov TlXciToovog SjaAoyov, %pog Toug TrapovTotg sjTrev, on ovdsv tov- 

TMV OVTS SiTTSVy OUTS T^KOVOS TTdpCC IlAATllNO]^. TUVTOt (pOKTl XCH 

*l>cndvivu siTTsiv, avocyvovToc TOV TTspi 4/up^ry^s. On which Schweigh- 
aeuser observes : " Quod Gorgiam, lecto Platonico dialogo 
" qui ab eo nomen habet, dicentem faciunt libri nostri, se 
" )iihil tale vel Ijjsum dixisse vel a PLATONE audwisse, 
" fieri non potest ut ita scripserit Athenseus : sed '^apu 
" ^HKPATOTS baud dubie legendum; cum non se, sed 
" Socratem, cum Gorgia disputantem Plato fecerit." 

101. 14. 

The position here advanced rests on the most decided 
testimonies of history, and even on the confessions of the 
early philosophers of Greece themselves. The following 
is a brief summary of the leading avithorities among the 
writers of antiquity. Diodorus Siculus, 1. i. from c. 96 to 
the end of the book 3 Diogenes Laertius in the lives of 
Thales, Solon, Cleobulus, Plato, Pythagoras, Democritus, 
and Pyrrho : Plato's Timseus : Porphyry and Jamblichus 
in their lives of Pythagoras : Herodotus, 1. ii. : Clement of 
Alexandria, Strom. 1. i. c. 15. : Aristotle, as quoted by Dio- 
genes Laertius t,l. i. §. 1 . Josephus cont. Apion. 

It would lead to an unsuitable prolixity, if we were to 
collect together the information afforded us on this subject 
by the writers above enumerated. It may not however be 
uninteresting or useless if we quote from one of them, 
namely, Clement of Alexandria", a few remarks, which, as 
they are coincident with the general result to which such 
a collection of particulars would lead us, may supply the 
place of more extended and numerous citations. 

'* With regard to the wise men and philosophers of 
" Greece, it is hardly necessary to remark, that the greater 
" part of the most ancient of them were either barbarians 
" by birth, or instructed by barbarians ; since it has been 
" shewn, that Pythagoras was either a Tyrrhenian or a Ty- 
" rian : Antisthenes was a Phrygian ; Orpheus an Odry - 

• L. xuc. 113. 

' From a work nititlcd MwyiKev, wliich tli;;t autlior rtsciibcs to him, but 
whicli Siiidas attributes to Aiiti.stluMios, and others to Hhodon. 
" Strom. 1. IT). 



Supplementary Remarks, 423 

" sian or a Thracian ; and Homer is for the most part 
" thought to have been an Egyptian. Thales was a Phe- 
" nician by birth, and is moreover recorded to have con- 
" versed with the prophets of Egypt. Pythagoras did the 
" same, and was Ukewise circumcised by those prophets, 
" in order that he might be admitted to the most sacred 
" recesses of their temples ^, and thus become instructed 
" in the mystical philosophy of the Egyptians. He also 
" conversed with the most eminent of the Chaldeans and 

" the Magi. As for Plato, he does not deny that he 

" brought home from the barbarians the noblest parts of 
" his philosophy, and confesses that he visited Egypt. 

" Indeed it is manifest, that he takes every occasion to 

" magnify the barbarians ; since he speaks of both himself 
" and Pythagoras as having learned the largest and best 
" part of their doctrines among them. In one of his dia- 
" logues he discovers his acquaintance with the Egyptian 
*' king, and speaks of Thoyth, an eminently wise man, 
" whom he knew to be the same vv^ith Mercury ; and in an- 
" other he appears to have known certain Thracians who 
" held the immortality of the soul. Pythagoras is recorded 
" to have been the scholar of Sonches, the Egyptian chief- 
" prophet i Plato of Sechnuphis the Heliopolitan 3 and Eu- 
" doxus the Cnidian of Conuphis, Vv^ho was also an Egyp- 
*' tian. — ^With regard to Democritus, we find him in his 
" writings, magnifying his own learning after the following 
" manner : ' I have travelled over a greater part of the 
" earth than any of my contemporaries, carrying my in- 
" quiries into the most remote points of human know- 
" ledge. I have also witnessed a greater variety of climates 
" and of soils. I have conversed with a greater number 
" of learned men. No man, not even those who are called 
" Arpedonaptse among the Egyptians, ever surpassed me 
*' in the construction of lines, together with the demon- 
" stration [of their properties]. With these learned men 
" I have maintained an intercourse on the whole for eighty 
" years in foreign countries.' For he visited Babylon, and 
" Persis, and Egypt, and was a scholar of both the Magi 
*' and the priests. Pythagoras first made mention of Zo- 
" roaster the Persian Magus : of whose secret books the 
" followers of Prodicus boast themselves in possession. 
*^ Alexander, in his treatise on the Pythagoric symbols, 
" records that Pythagoras was a scholar of Nazaratus the 

■^ Gr. roi K^vTcc, those from which all Imt the priests were excluded. 

E e 4 



424 Supplementary Remarks, 

" Assyrian • — and that lie was moreover a hearer of the 

" Gauls and Brachmans. It appears then, that philoso- 

" phy, a thing greatly beneficial to mankind, flourished in 
" ancient times among the barbarians, and diffused its light 
" among the nations ; and that it was afterwards intro- 
'' duced into Greece. And those who taught it were, the 
" prophets of Egypt, the Chaldeans of Assyria, the Druids 
" of Gaul, the Samaneans of Bactria, those who philoso- 
" phized among the Celts, the magi of Persia, — the gym- 
" nosophistee of India ; and other barbarian philosophers.'* 

Though we have said, that the early philosophy of Greece 
was derived for the most part from very impure sources 
of information, we ought however to add, that it appears 
in some instances to have been gathered from an inter- 
course with those among whom the doctrines of revealed 
truth were still preserved in their purity. To these doc- 
trines, indeed, do the ancient philosophers appear to have 
been ultimately indebted for whatever supplies of true and 
valuable knowledge they possessed : while that impure mix- 
ture of falsehood with which their systems are debased, 
may be justly regarded, as having originated, either in the 
perverted state of theology and science among those bar- 
barians who were their more immediate instructors, or else 
in the abuse of their own reason and the vanity of their 
imaginations. In relation to this subject, the following 
remarkable particulars are furnished by the testimony of 
heathen writers. 

We learn from Megasthenes y, (a heathen historian, con- 
temporar}^ with Seleucus Nicator,) that whatever had been 
said respecting nature by the ancients, was also to be found 
among those who philosophized out of Greece; namely, 
partly among the Brachmans of India, and partly among 
those inhabitants of Syria who are called Jews. The au- 
thority of Clearchus, an eminent disciple of Aristotle, is 
cited by Clement of Alexandria ^ and Josephus ^, as record- 
ing the intercourse between that great philosopher, and a 
person of the Jewish nation : and the latter of these writ- 
ers, among other interesting particulars connected with this 
affair, gives a citation of Aristotle's words from the work of 
Clearchus, acknowledging the information, which Aristotle 
and his companions had gathered from the 3cw, to iiave 
been more valuable than that which they had communicat- 
ed to him. Josephus declares concerning Pythagoras, that 

} AlMuK km. Alex. Str. 1. 1.'.. ' Ibid. •" Coat. Ap. i. 22. 



Supple7ttentary Remarks, 425 

he was certainly not only well acquainted with the institu- 
tions of the Jews, but also, for the most part, an imitator 
of them : and cites the authority of Hermippus, a diligent 
and accurate historian, in proof of his assertion ^. We learn 
from Porphyry, respecting the same philosopher, that he 
visited not only the Egyptians, the Arabs, and Chaldeans, 
bvit also the Hebrews ; and that the wisdom he acquired 
was principally the fruit of his travels among these na- 
tions ^. In relation to this subject, the narrative of Jam- 
blichus is no less remarkable. He relates'^, that when 
Pythagoras in the earlier part of his life visited Thales, the 
latter, after communicating to Pythagoras whatever in- 
struction he could, and excusing himself by reason of age 
and infirmity from doing more, strenuously urged him " to 
" take a voyage to Egypt, and especially to converse with 
" the priests at Memphis and Diospolis; alleging that he 
" himself had obtained from them those instructions to 
" which he owed his reputation for wisdom." Now it is 
remarkable that, of the two great divisions of Greek philo- 
sophy, the Ionic and the Italic, we find Thales at the head 
of the succession in the former, and Pythagoras in nearly 
the same situation with regard to the latter : Thales being, 
as is generally supposed, a Phenician by birth, Pythagoras 
his disciple, and both of them instructed in Egypt. From 
which it appears, that the knowledge of both these early 
sages was derived from two countries, in both of which 
primeval truth was much debased by superstition and ido- 
latry, and of which both were situated near to the country 
of that people, who w^ere the depositaries of the oracles of 
God and of the uncorrupted primitive religion of man- 
kind. 

I cannot conclude this note without observing, that the 
most valuable information and remarks on the interesting 
subject of it, are contained in the twelfth and thirteenth 
chapters of the third book of Witsius's iEgyptiaca. 

101. 26. 

that portion of its literature, which, being anterior 

to the age of philosophy, tuas therefore secure from its in- 
fection.] How soon after the appearance of Pythagoras 
the Grecian mythology was infected with his doctrines, 
will appear from the following lines of Pindar, whose early 



'• Cont. Ap. i. 22. ■• Do Vita Fythajr. §.11,12. 

•' IJeVit. P.ythag. c. ii. §.12. 



426 Supplementary Remarks: 

life was contemporary with the latter years of Pythagoras, 
and who is described by Clement of Alexandria as a mem- 
ber of his sect ^. Here we meet with the doctrine of the 
transmigration in a form very similar to that in which it 
occurs in the Phaedrus of Plato. 

'ExarspooSi fxsivuvTs^ 
Atto ira^'KOLV alixuiv zyzw 
^v'/av^ sTsiXoiv Aiog 

'Ohv TTCHpoi KpOVOU TVp- 

(yiv svQu ixaxctpcjov 

Nacrov cjOKSixvi^i^ 

Avpui 7rspi'iTVsov(riv' >c. r. A. Ol. 11. 123. 

The same appears from a fragment of Pindar contained 
in the Menon of Plato ^. 

101. 30. 
the prevailmg sentiments of savage life, &c.] Simi- 



lar opinions respecting a future state discover themselves 
in the mythology of the northern nations. The following- 
description is taken from Mallet's Northern Antiquities s. 
" Those only whose blood had been shed in battle might 
" aspire to the pleasures which Odin prepared for them in 
" Valhalla. The pleasures which they expected after 
" death, shew us plainly enough what they relished during 
" life. ' The heroes,' says the Edda, ' who are received 
" into the palace of Odin, have every day the pleasure of 
" arming themselves, of passing in review, of ranging 
" themselves in order of battle, and of cutting one another 
" in pieces ; but as soon as the hour of repast approaches, 
" they return on horseback all safe and sound back to the 
" hall of Odin, and fall to eating and drinking. Though 
^' the number of them cannot be counted, the flesh of the 
" boar Serimner is sufficient for them all ; every day it is 
" served up at table, and every day it is renewed again en- 
<' tire : their beverage is beer and mead ; one single goat, 
*' whose milk is excellent mead, furnishes enough of that 
" liquor to intoxicate all the heroes : their cups are the 
" skulls of enemies they have slain. Odin alone, who sits 
" at a table by himself, drinks wine for his entire liquor. 
" A crowd of virgins wait upon the heroes at table, and 

Strom. V. 11. ' Opp. vol. iv. p. 'MA. k Vol. i. p. 11!J. Ed. 1770. 



Supplement my Remarks. 427 

" fill their cups as fast as they empty them.' Such was 
" that happy state, the bare hope of which rendered all the 
" inhabitants of the north of Europe intrepid, and which 
" made them not only to defy, but even seek with ardour, 
" the most cruel deaths. Accordingly king Regner Lodbrog 
" when he was going to die, far from uttering groans or 
" forming complaints, expressed his joy by these verses. 
" ' We are cut to pieces with swords : but this fills me with 
" joy, when I think of the feast that is preparing for me in 
" Odin^s palace. Quickly, quickly seated in the splendid 
" habitation of the gods, we shall drink beer out of the 
" skulls of our enemies. A brave man fears not to die. I 
" shall utter no timorous words as I enter the hall of 
" Odin.' " 

117. 
Against Mr. Addison's argument for the immortality of 
the soul, which is treated of in this and the following page, 
I am aware that an objection may be framed by alleging 
the weakness and decay of faculties in aged persons. But 
it is to be considered, that such decay is an effect purely 
corporeal. It cannot be said that the spiritual part of us, 
viewed abstractedly in itself and independently of the body, 
is ever debilitated or impaired by years, so as to be inca- 
pable of acquiring new knowledge, or of improving the 
mental vigour which has been obtained by the previous ex- 
ercise of reason. This effect indeed we discern in the 
compounded being : it is not however an affection of the 
soul, but occasioned only by the state of those bodily or- 
gans in conjunction with which the soul performs its opera- 
tions h. The result then of a just observation of this mat- 

^ Aristotle, though no advocate for the mnnortality of the soul, as we un- 
derstand the term, has insisted upon this distinction, while maintaining the 
eternity of its duration as a substance. 'O ^i vov; loty.iv itryivicr^cci, ovria, t/j 

ovtrcty Koii ov (^Sii^KT^cit. MaA/cra ya,o s^^n^ir av iiTo tyi; £v t&j y/j^cc uf/.(zvouciuji, 
Uvvt 03, uff-TTi^ iVi TMv ciiT^'/^T'/i^iMV iruft(iatvii' n ycig Xafici 'Z^i(r(->v~-/i; cf/,fji,a, toiov^-, 
^y.i'^roi av uT-TTio xai o vio;. 'flSTE TO THPAS, OT Til; THN H'TXHN nEHON- 
GENAI TI, AAA' EN STlr xu&a.'Tri^ iv f^z^cKg xeti voffoi;. Kui ro vnuv 'Sr, kch -to ha- 
l^iiv ^u^citvi-ai, ciXXov 7ivo; laeo (pht^of/.ivov' uvro 'hi a.'Tradi; iitti, *' The mind, 
'* being a substance, appears to be introduced into the body, and to be in- 
" corruptible. For [if it were corruptible], it would be most subject to cor- 
" ruption from the decay of its faculties in old age. But as the case is, the 
*' same thing happens witli regard to the mind as docs with regard to the or- 
•' gans of sensation : for if the old man were to obtain a vigorous eye, he 
" would see as well as the young. So that \tlie iiijirmity oJ"\ old age con- 
" sists^ not in any o.ffection of the soul, but in an q^'ection of that in vhich 
" the soul is placed ; agreeably to what takes place in drunkenness and dis- 
" ease. And the power of thought and contemplation is impaired, because 
" something else within [the body] is corrupted ; but the faculty it?clf is ini- 
" passible." De Anima, i. 5. 



428 Supplementary Remarks, 

ter would lead us to infer, that a power designed for im- 
mortality is united to a substance which we now find to be 
in a perishable and mortal state : and thus should we be 
led, from surveying the constitution of the soul, to conclude 
respectnig it agreeably to the discoveries of scripture, that 
the breath of life, which was breathed into man at his cre- 
ation^ was given him with a view to the perpetuity of his 
duration. 

119. 12. 
The doctrine of the Egj^ptians respecting the soul is 
thus stated by Herodotus : " That the soul of man is im- 
" mortal ; that on the death of the body, it migrates suc- 
" cessively for ever into some other animal at the time 
" of its birth ; that when it has thus passed through all 
'' the [species of] animals which inhabit the land and the 
" sea, together with all the [species of] winged animals, it 
" reenters the body of a man at the time of its birth ; and 
" that it performs this revolution once in 3000 years." Of 
the doctrine thus described at length, he says, that the 
Egyptians ^vere the earliest nation who maintained it : yet 
his authority has been continually quoted as saying, that 
the Egyjjtians were the first ivho held that the soul is 
immortal! This is the more remarkable when we advert 
to the original text, in which the author appears to have 
obviated the possibility of misconception, by employing 
the demonstrative pronoun both immediately before and 
after his description of the doctrine. The words are as 
follows : ripcoTOj &e Ka^ TONAE rov Xoyov AiyvnriOh st(n ol si- 
•novTsg, '' cog av^pcoTrov 4/u%>) aQotvciTO; ecrri* rou (rcjofxoiTog Bs xotTU- 
'^ (p^ivovTOs, sj aK\Q ^wov casi yivofxevov s<rlusTotr sttsoiv 5s Trspis^Qi^ 
'' TtoLVTOL TOL "^epdc/Aci Kon TO. ^uXadcriOL xui rx irsTsiva^ avric sg uv- 
" QpcuTTOU (rwiJ!.cc yivofLSvov ecr5yv£<v tvjv TrspiTiXviriv 5s uvtyj yivsaQoti 
*' sv rpiT')(^iKioi(Ti sTi(n" TOTTf2< toj Xoyco sidi o\ 'EXAvjvcov 
i-X^qria-avTo^ y.. r. K. The mistake is, I believe, wholly con- 
fined to modern writers. It is noticed by Larcher, in the 
second edition of his translation of Herodotus. Sir John 
Marsham has understood this passage of Herodotus, as if 
the sense of that historian had been fully given in the fol- 
lowing words, Trpwroi rov^s rov Xoyov AiyvTTTtoi sia-t eiTrovreg, oog 
sivQgcjoTToi) 4^vxy) uSavuToc eoTi : for here he stops short in his 
(juotation '. On the ground of this misconstruction, he 

' His words arc as follows : " Nobilissimum aiilem eorum invcntiim fuit 
" Immorlalilas /IninKT ; ita ut de vita speni aliquain haberent, etiam post 

" IliljUK vit-T illtcrituill. W^m^di tovoi tom "koyo^/ Aiyvrrici itcn H'zovri;, a; av- 

" ((m-rou "^vx^'/t cfJuvaras irri. Cum vcro ratiocinationc sua nihil magis de 



Supplementary Remarks, 429 

speaks of the immortality of the soul as t/ie noblest of 
Egyptian discoveries; and seems to think that the doc- 
trine of a future state was as much the peculiar fruit of that 
people's ingenuity, as a certain artificial method of hatch- 
ing chickens which is related to have been in use among 
them. Witsius, in his excellent confutation of Marsham, 
instead of rectifying the misconstruction of his opponent, 
has contented himself with giving the lie to Herodotus for 
an assertion which never came into his head. " Quum 
" animarum immortalitatem," says he, " primum ^gyptio- 
" rum inventum esse scripsit Herodotus, sple7idide mentitus 
" est^y This is the more remarkable in Witsius, as he 
has on another occasion very properly cautioned his readers 
against giving credit to Marsham's quotations. " Non 
" possum," says he, " quin lectores moneam, ne temere 
" Marshami citationibus fidem suam adstringant ; qui, ubi 
^' ^Egyptios suos laudandi occasionem aliquam se invenisse 
" putat, nimis saepe suis indulget affectibus '." This mis- 
take of Herodotus's meaning has been so prevalent, that it 
would be unfair to ground upon it a charge of wilful mis- 
representation against Marsham : though, on the other 
hand, it is not improbable that he may have been the first 
propagator of it, and that the error may have passed cur- 
rent on his authority for want of due examination in those 
who have followed him, since he is the earliest of those 
modern writers in whom I recollect having met with it. 

128. 12. 

But hotJi these great lights of paganism, though them- 
selves justly suspected of infidelity ivith regard to a future 
retribution, &c.] Of the suspicion here expressed, it is fit 
that the grounds should be stated. With regard to Pytha- 
goras, the quotation from Timeeus will justly be regarded 
as carrying with it considerable weight ; and the evidence 
which it affords will be corroborated in the course of ob- 
servation we are about to pursue. But in these remarks 
we shall chiefly be concerned with Plato. 

I. As the frequent and strong declarations of a future 
state which occur in the writings of this philosopher will 
naturally appear to favour the contrary presumption, it 

'' Anima homiiiis, quam de bestiffi, assecuti fuerint ; existimabant animas 
" de homluibus jn bestias, de bestiis in homines transire. Tov o-uy.a.-o; xa.- 

*' TCt,<p^tvov-ro;, i; aXXo ^uov a.n ytvofjt,ivov ar^vav, Corpoie defunctO in aliud 

" atque aliud corpus gcnitum, niigrare animam." Cbronicus Canon, p. 217, 
od. Lond. 1672. 

k i^gyptiaca, I. ii. e. 15. §.4. > ^gyptiaca, 1. ii. c. 16. §. 8. 



480 Supplementary Remarks. 

will he right to obviate, in the first place, the seeming con- 
tradiction they present to the opinion we have advanced. 

The general principle of the double doctrine has already 
been stated from Synesius "^. This indeed was the com- 
mon doctrine of both the Pythagorean and Platonic schools, 
" that all things were not to be declared to all men'\" 
Plato in the strongest manner declares his own concur- 
rence in it, where, speaking in the person of Socrates, he 
says : '^ It seems to be requisite, that magistrates should 
'' employ much falsehood and deceit for the benefit of those 
" whom they govern^." Such being his principle, it can- 
not be doubted but that, if he had disbelieved a future 
state, he would nevertheless have taught it : since his 
writings evince, in the fullest manner, his conviction of the 
indispensable necessity of that doctrine for the purposes of 
social good. 

II. If Plato really believed a future state, he cannot be 
supposed to have believed it in any other way than accord- 
ing to the system of his metempsychosis : for he does not 
any where recognise the doctrine in a manner at variance 
with that form of it P. The following conclusion will there- 
fore be inevitable : If he did not believe the metempsycho- 
sis, he did not believe a future state. Now his disbelief of 
the metempsychosis will, I think, be evident from the fol- 
lowing considerations. 

Of a doctrine which he sincerely believed, his various 
statements would have been consistent and uniform. This 
is always the case with men who express opinions taken up 
on serious and settled conviction : it is only in the exercise 
of fiction and the indulgence of fancy, that we find them 
vary in their statements according to the feeling and pur- 
pose of the moment. But this consistency we shall not 
find in the several statements which Plato has given of this 
doctrine. There are five of his dialogues q in which it is 
descri])ed ; and of the several accounts thus given of it, 

'" Pac;e H8 of this VOlk. " M-/^ nvKt -r^os Tuvra; Tavra. p'/;ru.. 

" DeRep. 1. v. Opp. vol. vii. pp. 2:5, 2 1. 

I' His Gorgias indeed contains an account of future rewards and puuish- 
ments, in which the metempsychosis is not expressly mentioned. There 
•seems however to be a manifest allusion to it, where, speakinpf of the eternal 
punishments of the incurably wicked in the infernal regions, he says, *' that 
" these punishments, though no way beneficial to the sufferers, are ueverthc- 
'* less pro'.il.ible to all unjust persons who ft-om time to time come into tho^e 
"regions, since thev operate as aiimornHoiis and warniniis :'' of which 
warnings it is not easy to understand the use, except on the supposition of a 
return to the probationary state. Plat. Opp. vol. iv. pp. 168, IfJ!). 

'» TimaRUs, rha?drus, Menon, Phsedon, and De Re])ublira. 



Supplementary Remarks. ' 431 

each is, as to some leading particulars, inconsistent with 
all the others. It will be unnecessary to specify in detail 
these numerous inconsistencies, the fact of their existence 
being sufficient for the present argument. Now that he 
seriously entertained all these contradictory views upon 
the same subject is impossible. The existence of so many 
destroys the evidence of his belief of any one ; and the 
contradiction which is found in them affords the strongest 
presumption that he believed none. From which it seems 
to be a fair consequence, that he did not believe a future 
state at all : since he no where recognises that doctrine 
except in the form of the metempsychosis. 

111. An anonymous biographer of Pythagoras, of whose 
work an abstract is given in the Bibliotheca of Photius, 
has the following passage^. " Plato and Aristotle, in like 
" manner, declare that the soul is immortal ; though some, 
" not being able to fathom the meaning of Aristotle, ima- 
" gine him to say that it is mortal." Jf therefore we as- 
certain the precise nature of the views entertained by Aris- 
totle upon this subject, we shall obtain a material help to- 
wards discovering those of Plato. 

Now with regard to Aristotle, it is undeniable that he 
considered death as the final and total extinction of human 
consciousness s. It is equally certain that he expressly 
declares the soul, or rather a particular faculty of it, to be 
eternal and immortals In order to reconcile these appa- 
rent contradictions, we are to observe the distinction which 
he makes between two faculties of the soul, the j^ct^^ive 
ynind^ and the active mind. By the former of these terms 
he denotes the faculty of apprehension ; by the latter, the 
active power of judgment and reasoning. Now concern- 
ing the passive mind, he declares, that it is mortal, and 
cannot be separated from the body, because the ideas 
((Pavraa-jxara) which it apprehends are wholly supplied by 
bodily perception^. Of the latter, that is the active mind, 
he declares that it does exist in separation from the body, 
that it is immortal and eternal. But at the same time he 
maintahis, that though existing separate from the body, it 

"" Cod. 259. TlXecruiv x,ai APKr-TOTiXr,; vJccvxtcv ofjcotui Xiy/jv(ri rriv •^v^y,)/' zav 
~i\/li its rov A^t(rTOT-Xo'j; vow ovk if/^fhu^vvovra, fivr.Tnv ^ofii^nvcrtv avTov XtyiiM. 

uyetdev^ ovrt kuxo-j nvcci. Eth. ad Nic. ill. 6. 

' De An. iii 6. 

" TicfJ'/irixoc vo'js ; winch he also calls (pa-vracnec. 

X ^CD/raa-i/z ov yiyvzrxi cev:U ccur^^mw?. Dc All, ii). ?>. To «;c-^5jr/x«v ovk «v?t/ 
sTvfiv.-roi. Ibid. -iii. .5. 



432 Supplementary Remarks. 

no longer retains any memory, consciousness, or power of 
thought, beciuise it can exercise its contemplative power 
only in conjunction with the passive mind, which passive 
mind is inseparable from the body, and is perishable y. 
Here then the faculty in question is plainly declared to 
be eternal, and as plainly declared to become divested of 
all personality and consciousness as soon as it is separated 
from the body. In this I apprehend there was a perfect 
agreement between Aristotle and Plato. 

IV. This conclusion will appear the more reasonable 
from the following considerations. The real doctrine of 
Pythagoras respecting the soul is thus stated by Diogenes 
Laertius : " That the soul is discerped from the ether, 
*' and that it is immortal, because the substance from 
" which it is discerped is immortal^." If now w^e ask, 
what is meant by the ether, we find it explained in Plu- 
tarch, who gives the same meaning in a different form of 
words : " Pythagoras and Plato," says he, '' held that the 
'* soul is incorruptible ; for that, when it goes out of the 
" body, it returns back into the soul of the universe, w^iich 
" is homogenial to it^." If again we would understand 
what is meant b)^ the soul of the universe, we find that, 
according to the doctrine of Pythagoras, it was the same 
with the Deityb. So that here the notion of the soul's 
immortality is nothing else than the doctrine which we 
have already described^, of its refusion into the Divine 
Essence. 
V. Though the following particulars might, in themselves, 

>■ OwT/jj voui [i. C. '7rov,Tizo;'\ ^u^ictto;^ x.ut u[/.tyyi;, y.cci u'Tcc^vj;- X'^' 

fji^^ui li iffTi f^ovovTOvf cTi^ io-TiyKeci TOTTO iMONON AGANATOX KAI AIAION. 
6t MNHMONETOMEN AE, o-i 700-0 ^£v K-rcch;, o h Tahrixo; vovs (p^u^TOf, 
KAI ANET TOTTOT OT0EN NOEI. " This active mind is separable, un- 
" mixed, aud impassible. But it is oeparablc ouly in regard to its essence, 
♦' [i. e. not in the retention of its exercise and functions,] aud this its 
" essence only is immortal aud eternal. But we do not remember with it, 
" [when separated from the body,] becau.^e this [i. e. the active mind] is 
" impassible, [that is, unsusceptible of external impressions,] but the pas- 
" sive mind is corruptible, and without the passive the-active can contemplate 
" nothiug." De An. iii. 6. 

^ E/va/ T»v •^'j^-YiV a-roa-'rairf/.cc, aidi^os, a^avxTov t£ uveit ccutyiV, fru^nvi^ 

xai TO a.:p' ov a-TiTVaffroct cc^avo^rov iffTi. Diocf. LaCrt. viii. 28. 

^ Uti^ccyaoecSf nXotTuv, u^^u^rov itvat ty,v '^vx,^v, s^tovirxv ya.^ ii; tyiV rou 9rav- 
Tog y^vx'^v uvu^u^iiv <r^oi ro of4,oyivis. De Plac. Philosoph. iv. 7. 

'■ " I'ythajroras, qui censuit, anhuum esse per naturam rerum onine)u 
** hiti;)itu.ii it co))i7)i<;a)}ft HI, c.v quo itostri (niimi rai-jxrenfiir, non vidit 
" distrartione humauorum aniniorum discerpi et lacerari Deiim : et cum 
" luiseri animi esseut, quod plorisque coutingeret, fam Dei partem esse nii- 
♦' .'*eram." De Nat. Deor. i. 11. 

' Pajre 141. 



Supplementary Rernarks. 433 

as they affect the present question, be entitled to little con- 
sideration, they must be admitted, when viewed in conjunc- 
tion with the foregoing arguments, to strengthen the pro- 
bability of the inference we deduce from them. Cicero has 
transmitted to us the following line translated from the 
poet Epicharmus : 

Emori nolo : sed me esse mortuum nihil ^esturno '^. 

Here is a plain contradiction to the doctrine of a future 
state : since the sentiment thus expressed is that of a man, 
who, viewing death as the final close of existence, contem- 
plates that event with anxiety and horror, but looks upon 
every thing beyond it with indifference^. Now concern- 
ing this Epicharmus we are to observe, that he was a Py- 
thagorean, instructed by Pythagoras himself f, and that he 
is charged by J amblichus s with divulging in his poems the 
secret doctrines of his sect. This he is said to have done 
covertly, and in a sportive manner ; which his occupation 
as a comic poet would afford him the most favourable op- 
portunities of doing. The above sentiment may therefore 
not improbably be viewed as containing one of those Py- 
thagorean arcana which he dividged. It is true, that Jam- 
blichus, among other inconsistencies for which his work is 
remarkable, tells us in the same breath, that Epicharmus 
was only an exoteric disciple, and not admitted into the 
interior and more sacred doctrines of his sect ; which is 
just the same thing as to accuse a man of telling secrets 
which he does not know. The more probable supposition 
is, that he was disowned by reason of the discreditable na- 
ture of his disclosures. 

Such are the facts and considerations by which we are 
induced to think, that the doctrine of a future retribution 
was, by Pythagoras and Plato, valued and taught solely as 



^ Cic. Tusc. Disp. i. 8. 

« This is evident : because Cieero declares it to be the same with a senti- 
ment which had been jusUbefore expressed in other words as follows : " Age, 
" jam coucedo non esse miseros, qui mortui sunt, quouiam extorsisti ut fa- 
" terer, qui oranino non essent, eos ne miseros quidem esse posse. Quid ? 
" Qui vivimus, cum moriendum sit, nonne miseri sumus? Quae enim potest 
" in vita esse jucunditas, cum dies et noctes cogitandum sit, jam jamque esse 
" moriendum?" c. 7. 

*" Diog. Laert. viii. 78. 

" His account of the matter is as follows: Tuv V tlc^iv ccK^occruv yiMia^ai 
ftoLi ETt^a^f/.'}V aXX' ovst ix. tov (ruaTr,f/,a,roi tuv uv^^mv. A^sxof^syov di it; lu^tt.- 
xov(ru,c,^ia, ryiv li^aivos rvpotwiha, tov (t^sv <pavi^us <piXo(ro<pnv KToffy^itrfen. Eig fit- 
Toov 01 ivti'/di Tflts ^jcivoix; ruv ctv^^uv^ fjLira. <7ra,ihta,( x.ov(pn ix.<l>spovr» to. Tlu^aycocu 
2oyf*aTCt. V, P. §. 266. 

Ff 



434 Supplementary Remarks. 

a political doctrine, but wholly disbelieved by them both. 
We will only observe, in conclusion, that the statements 
which are here advanced in respect to either of them, may 
reasonably be extended in their application to the other : 
since the opinions of Plato on this subject are well known 
to have been framed on the model of those of Pythagoras. 

139. 1. 
TFe have the fullest reason to believe that he never at- 
tempted to disprove, nor even disoicned them.'] As a proof, 
however, of the contrary, Warburton^ lays the greatest 
stress on the following passage from Cicero i; " Qui Apol- 
" linis oraculo sapientissimus est judicatus : qui non tum 
" hoc, tum illud, ut in plerisque, sed idem dicebat sem- 
" per, ANiMos HOMiNUM ESSE DiviNos I iisque, cum e 
" corpore excessissent, reditum in coelum patere, opti- 
" moque et justissimo cuique expeditissimum." But the 
force of this testimony is wholly enervated by the em- 
ployment of the term reditus in coelum; a term in which 
Cicero describes the immortality of the soul in strict agree- 
ment with the Platonic notion of it. This may be seen by 
the repeated use of the same term in the Somnium Sci- 
pionis : where the language of Cicero, throughout, most 
explicitly conveys an exact concurrence with the senti- 
ments of Plato in relation to the particulars in question. 
We allude to the eternal preexistence, the immortality of 
brutes, and the unchangeable number of souls : all of 
which are conclusions arising from the argument of Plato, 
of which we have given a translation ^S t^nd which Cicero 
has here incorporated in the discourse of Scipio Africanus. 
The same point will be further established when we con- 
sider, that Cicero, in the part of his treatise from which 
the citation of Warburton is extracted, is citing his autho- 
rities for the immortality of the soul, and that he had just 
before included in the enumeration of those authorities the 
names of Pythagoras and his disciples. Now in regard to 
the latter, who are here mentioned with the same respect 
as Socrates, it is plain that they are not exonerated from 
the general censure which Warburton has justly passed 
on the ancient philosophers. The quotation from Cicero 
then is rather corroborative of the position contained in 
the text, than contradictory to it. We must however ad- 
mit, that the confirmation it affords is perfectly nugatory : 

h I). L. iii. §. 4. p. 11)5. ' Dc Am. c. 4. ^ pp, 89—92 of this work. 



Supplementary Remarks. 435 

since it is little more than a translation from the Phaedon 
of Plato, whose testimony on this point proves nothing: 
being entitled, for reasons which we have already stated, 
to no credit whatever. But indeed, if this testimony were 
admitted, the scepticism of Socrates on the subject of a 
future state must appear most fully confirmed : since we 
find him, in the narrative of his defence which has been 
given us by Plato, declaring, at one time, that he does not 
know whether death be a good or an eviP; and at an- 
other, alleging the indecision of his mind respecting the 
state of departed souls, as the greatest proof of his supe- 
rior wisdom"^. 

146. 1. 

And scarcely of any practical effect in the regula- 
tion of life.] In order to a just estimate of the value of 
those disquisitions respecting the soul for which we are 
indebted to the philosophy of the ancients, their practical 
influence, as well as their intrinsic worth, ought doubtless 
to be weighed in the balance. 

Now if we would judge of such influence by the high 
reputation for virtue which is currently attached to the 
names of some of the greatest philosophers, we might 
readily admit that it was both great and beneficial : but if 
we search into the grounds of that reputation, we shall 
certainly have reason to beware how we trust so fallacious 
a guide. While under the darkness of Gentile ignorance, 
the most erroneous standard of rectitude prevailed, and 
the most pernicious maxims of morality were generally re- 
ceived as the laws of virtue : while the vanity of philo- 
sophy, in the absence of revealed authority, was suffered 
to vent itself without contradiction in the praises of its 
followers, and its counterfeit wisdom was blindly admired, 
only because mankind were unacquainted with the true : 
we cannot wonder at the renown for which those eminent 
characters were thus indebted to a false and misguided 
judgment. But it may justly be deemed surprising that 
such renown should be echoed in modern ages : since 
Christianity has now been afforded to correct the opinions 
of mankind, to mark out the true lines of duty, to separate 
in human conduct the specious appearance, from the re- 
ality, of rectitude ; and has thus discovered the deformity 
and depravity of various dispositions and actions which 
were regarded by antiquity as venial, innocent, or even 
glorious. 

1 Plat. Ap. Soc. c. 27. >« Ibid. c. 17. 

Ff 2 



48() Supplementary Remarks, 

The Gospel, it must be owned, does not deeply influ- 
ence the hearts of all who embrace it, and therefore the 
just and full extent of its influence is not seen to most ad- 
vantage in large and promiscuous communities : but if we 
estimate this influence at the very lowest, it must at least 
be allowed to have had a most considerable and beneficial 
operation in giving a tincture to the general manners and 
sentiments of mankind. The consequence is, that many 
by whom it is not vitally and spiritually cherished, are 
nevertheless materially improved by it; since they have 
been kept under salutary restraint by a law of public opi- 
nion and decency, framed agreeably to its instructions. 

Now if we would frame our judgment respecting the 
character of the pagan philosophers even by this low stand- 
ard, we shall certainly find it difficult upon inquiry to dis- 
cover the grounds on which they still continue, in many in- 
stances, to be regarded as splendid examples of moral vir- 
tue. To establish the contrary proposition from the best 
evidence of which we are in possession, would not be diffi- 
cult, but would require a detail of quotation too copious 
for our present purpose. The following citation from Lac- 
tantius may, however, as it embodies in it the testimony 
of other writers whose impartiality in relation to this sub- 
ject cannot be disputed, partly supply the want of more 
numerous authorities. " There are," says he, " and al- 
" ways have been, numberless persons who have main- 
" tained a virtuous life without the benefit of instruction : 
" among the philosophers, on the contrary, you will meet 
" with very rare examples of any praiseworthy action. 
" Who then can possibly suppose, that they who are them- 
" selves destitute of virtue, can be qualified for teaching 
" it? Look carefully into their lives and behaviour, and 
" you will find them passionate, covetous, governed by 
" their lusts, insolent, and petulant : you will find them 
'* hiding their vices under the mask of wisdom, and prac- 
" tising at home the very things which they censured in 
" their public discourses. It may be said that I am car- 
" ried beyond the bounds of truth by the love of invective. 
*' Does not Cicero, then, confess and complain of the very 
" same thing? * How seldom,' says he, ' can you meet 
" with a philosopher, whose manners, whose temper, and 
" whose hfe, are framed agreeably to reason? who looks 
" upon the government of life, and not the ostentation of 
" science, as the true discipline of philosophy f who go- 
"■ verns himself, and lives conformably to his own deci- 



Supplementary Remarks. 437 

" sions ? You may discover in some of them so much le- 
" vity and self-conceit^ that ignorance would have been to 
" them better than learning : some you will find avari- 
" cious, others vain-glorious ; and many so totally en- 
" slaved to their lusts, that their lives and their speeches 
"appear to be wonderfully contradictory to each other.' 
" Cornelius Nepos also addresses himself to the same Ci- 
" cero after the following manner : ' So far am I from look- 
" ing up to philosophy for the direction of life and the pro- 
" duction of happiness, that I think no men more in want 
" of guidance and direction as to the conduct of life, than 
" many of those who are devoted to the study of philoso- 
" phy. For I observe a great part of those, who, in the 
" schools, inculcate modesty and continency with the great- 
" est acuteness and talent, living themselves in the most 
" shameful indulgence of every kind of lust.' In like man- 
*' ner Seneca observes in his Exhortations : ' Many of the 
" philosophers are of such a character, that their eloquent 
" dissertations contain the matter of their own reproach. 
^' When you hear them speaking in censure of avarice, 
" lust, and ambition, you might suppose them to be pro- 
" secuting their own accusation ; so much do their public 
" invectives rebound against themselves. In this respect 
" you can regard them only in the light of those medical 
" practitioners, whose labels are inscribed with the names 
" of antidotes, while the vessels to which they are attached 
" are filled with poisons n.'" 

The above may be viewed as conveying a fair descrip- 
tion of the philosophical character, as it was generally sus- 
tained in the pagan world. If we would restrict our esti- 
mate of that character to those philosophers by whom the 
doctrine of a future state was professed, we shall, even in 
this case, discover little which may serve to exemplify that 
practical support of virtue which the doctrine is commonly 
supposed to yield. Of this limited class, the design of our 
work has necessarily led us to illustrate the character of 
some of the more prominent ; and we have also had occa- 
sion, both in the body of our work and in the notes, to 
question the sincerity of that belief in a future retribution 
which they professed. We shall only add in general, that 
an examination of their Uves and writings will verify to 
the fullest extent the description we have given of their 
moral defects. With regard to the best of them, if their 

» Lact. Inst. Div. iii. 15. 
Ff3 



438 Supplementary Remarks. 

conduct be examined;, not by the standard of evangelical 
purity, but even according to that moderate and low stand- 
ard of morality which is current among the multitude in 
every Christian country, it will be found disfigured by the 
most disgusting blemishes. From this charge neither Pla- 
to, Xenophon, nor even Socrates himself, can justly be ex- 
empted. 

153. 25. 

The superimity of the true God could never be esta- 
blished by a comparison of his power in the distribution of 
future and invisible rewards and punishments, &c.] In re- 
lation to this subject, the following remarks of Maimo- 
nides are highly deserving of attention. We are to ob- 
serve respecting this writer, that it forms a leading part of 
his design in the work from which the following extract 
is taken, to explain the reasons of various provisions in 
the ritual of the Law. This he does, by a regard to the 
idolatrous usages which prevailed in the world at the time 
when the Law was given, and which may therefore rea- 
sonably be supposed to have been had in contemplation 
in a code, which was designed to separate his nation from 
their observance and infection. The source of information 
on which he chiefly relies for a knowledge of the religious 
customs of the ancient idolaters, consists of certain ancient 
books descriptive of the Zabian superstition ; a form of 
superstition which appears to have prevailed in ancient 
times almost throughout the whole world, and especially 
among those eastern nations which were situated in the 
vicinity of the chosen people o. This authority, indeed, 
however creditable, is the less important in relation to the 
value of the following quotation : because the manners and 
opinions therein described, are so exactly consonant with 
those of which we gain a knowledge from the writers of 
heathen antiquity in general, that they may seem almost 
to constitute a part of the essence of an idolatrous creed 
and worship. 

" If you consider," says he, " the ancient opinions of 
" the Zabii, you will find it to have been an acknowledged 
" principle with them, that the worship of the stars was 
" the means of prospering the cultivation of the earth and 
" procuring its fertility. Hence it was a part of the pub- 
" lie instruction of their wise, and learned, and religious 



" Sec Spencer de Legg. lib. ii. c. 1. and Maimonidis More Nev. p. iii. 
V. 29. 



Supplementary Remarks, 439 

" men, that the success of those agricultural labours by 
" which mankind are sustained and preserved, depended 
" on their own will : that is to say, that their labours 
" would prosper, if they worshipped the sun and other 
'• heavenly bodies with the adoration which was due to 
" them ; but that, if they offended them by their sins, their 
" cities and fields would be laid waste. — Of these promises 
" they had a great variety : as for instance, that they would 
" enjoy long life ; that they should be free from diseases ; 
" that they should be preserved from great crimes ; that 
" the earth should yield her increase -, and that their trees 
" should be fruitful even beyond the supply of their wants. 
" These are the words of the Zabii. When therefore these 
" opinions had been widely propagated and taken deep 
'^ root among mankind, it pleased the great and good God, 
" out of his boundless mercy to our nation, to eradicate 
" these errors from our minds, and to liberate our bodies 
" from the servitude of those laborious and useless cere- 
" monies which were thus prescribed. Thus he gave us 
" his Law by the hand of Moses, who declared to us in 
" the name of God, that if we should worship the stars 
" and the heavenly bodies, the rain should cease, the land 
" should be barren, the trees should not yield their fruit ; 
" that various evils should happen to our lives and dis- 
" eases to our bodies ; and finally that our lives should be 
" shortened by premature death. For all these things are 
" the words of the covenant which God made with us, and 
" you will find them scattered through every part of our 
" Law : that is to say, that the worship of the stars should 
" be followed by the want of rain, the desolation of the 
" land, unfavourable seasons, sickness, and premature 
'' death; and on the other hand, that the abandonment 
" of that worship and conversion to the worship of God, 
" should be followed by the falling of rain, the fruitfulness 
^' of the land, favourable seasons, health, and long life. 
" All of this was in contradiction to the worshippers of 
" idols, who, by holding forth the allurements we have 
" mentioned, endeavoured to seduce men to idolatry. For 
" it is a foundation of our Law to eradicate that doctrine 
" from the minds of men, and to extirpate the memory of 
" itP.'' 
The foregoing statement will justly be regarded as the 



p More Nevochim, p. iii. c. 30. See also p. iii. c. 37. The same view of 
the subject occurs in Men. ben Israel de Res. 1. i. c. 13. p. 97. 

Ff4 



440 Snppleme7itary Remarks. \ 

more valuable, when we remark its agreement with the 
following extract from the prophet Hosea, which it also 
contributes to illustrate. " And I will not have mercy 
" upon her children ; for they be the children of whore- 
" doms. For their mother hath played the harlot : she 
" that conceived them hath done shamefully : for she said, 
" I luiLl go after my lovers, that give me my bread and 
" my zuater, my icool and my flax, mine oil and my drink. 
" Therefore, behold, 1 will hedge up thy way with thonis, 
*' and make a wall, that she shall not find her paths. And 
" she shall follow after her lovers, but she shall not over- 
" take them ; and she shall seek them, but shall not find 
" them : then shall she say, I will go and return to my 
" first husband ; for then was it better with me than 
" now. For she did not know that I gave her corn, and 
" ivine, and oil, and multij^lied her silver and gold, which 
" they prepared for Baal. Therefore will I return, and 
" take away my corn in the time thereof, and my ivine in 
" the season thereof, and ivill recover my wool and my 
^^ Jiax given to cover her nakedness. And now will I dis- 
" cover her lewdness in the sight of her lovers, and none 
^' shall deliver her out of mine hand. I will also cause all 
" her mirth to cease, her feast days, her new moons, and 
" her sabbaths, and all her solemn feasts. And I ivill de- 
" stroy her vines and her Jig-trees, whereof she hath said, 
" These are my reicards that my lovers have given me : and 
" I will make them a forest, and the beasts of the field 
" shall eat them. And I will visit upon her the days of 
" Baalim, wherein she burned incense to them, and she 
" decked herself with her earrings and her jewels, and she 
" went after her lovers, and forgat me, saith the Lord^." 

215. 1. 
" There is yet another circumstance of some weight 
" which is remarked by Parkhurst, and is also noticed by 
" Castalio, Dathe, and Rosenmuller, although they have 
" not drawn from it the natural inference ; namely, that 
" r'J^tOn, which is feminine, is liere connected with a word 
" of the masculine gender, ^Iin ; which, as Parkhurst ju- 
" diciously observes, is perfectly consistent, on the supposi- 
" tion that rNiCn denotes a sin- offering: for then accord- 
" ing to a construction common in Hebrew, which refers 
" the adjective not to the word but to the thing understood 

1 Hosea ii. 4—13. 



Supplementary Remarks, 441 

" by it, the masculine ^n") is here combined with the ani- 
" mal, which was to be the sin-offering. In conformity 
" with this reasoning it will be found, that riNIOn in other 
" parts of Scripture where it is used for a sin-offering, is, 
" though feminine itself, connected with a masculine ad- 
" junct. See Exod. xxix. 14. Levit. iv. 21.24. v. 9. and 
'^ other places of Levit. where the masculine pronoun Nin 
" is used instead of the feminine i^^n. But in Gen. xviii. 
" 20. XX. 9. Exod. xxxii. 21.30. and other places, where 
" the word occurs in its original signification of sin, it has 
" constantly the adjective connected, in the feminine'' 
Magee on Atonement, Diss. Ixvii. vol. 2. pp. 244, 245. 

216.21. 

Among the various objections which have been advanced 
against the Divine institution of sacrifice, we think it proper 
to notice one which may be stated as follows : Sacrifice 
cannot reasonably be supposed to have originated in Di- 
vine institution, because, if it had, we cannot doubt that 
Scripture would have so informed us. To which we may 
reply by substituting, in the argument thus stated, the 
word human for Divine: after which the reasoning will 
be at least equally good, though the conclusion will be 
contrary. The objection thus framed proceeds upon the 
alleged silence of the holy Scriptures. Now admitting, for 
the present, the truth of the position on which it is 
grounded, it must still appear, that the silence of Scrip- 
ture is, to make the most of it, a silence of neutrality, and 
that it militates as strongly against the human, as against 
the Divine, institution. We may even contend further, 
that if sacrifice had spnmg from the invention of man, it 
was most important that mankind should have been in- 
formed of the fact : since the information thus afforded 
would have been in its own nature most effectually coun- 
teractive of those mistaken opinions respecting the value, 
the efl&cacy, and the perpetuity, of the sacrificial rite, which 
in later times presented among the Jewish nation a great 
obstacle to the reception of the Gospel. 

But when it is contended, that the Divine institution of 
sacrifice, in regard to its earliest observance, is not made 
known in the Scriptures, we apprehend, that a position is ad- 
vanced which will upon due inquiry prove to be false. For, 
if we admit the view which has been exhibited ^ of God's 

»P.214. 



442 Supplementary Remarks. 

expostulation with Cain, and the correctness of the amended 
translation which has been insisted upon as necessary to 
convey the true sense of the original ; it must then appear 
that the sin-offering is referred to by God himself as an 
appointed means of worship and expiation. If it be said, 
that the appointment of it is not communicated in a direct 
and explicit manner with relation to the time of its first 
introduction : it is to be considered, that the indirect com- 
munication of an important fact, with reference to some 
particular occasion which calls for the notice of it, is often 
preferred, as more striking, to the more regular and chro- 
nological style of narrative. Again, we are to consider, 
that the act of consecrating the blood of victims to the 
purpose of expiation is declared by God himself to be his 
own act. " I have given it to you upon the altar to make 
" an atonement for your souls s." These words, unaccom- 
panied as they are by any information given for the purpose 
of obviating such a construction, would naturally be under- 
stood to denote the Divine appointment of the subject to 
which they relate. That which is said to have been given 
by God for a particular purpose, cannot reasonably be 
viewed as having been first appropriated to that use by the 
voluntary act and excogitation of man. Let it not be said 
that the words relate ex:clusively to the Law of the Is- 
raelites. The Law which they explain was a part of the 
universal law of mankind, given to Noah for the observance 
of his posterity : and the law, as given to Noah, is ex- 
pressed in a manner which indicates that the reason of 
its enactment was in both instances the same. If there- 
fore the blood of victims were given to the Israelites by 
God as the means of expiation, it seems reasonable to in- 
fer, that it was also given by him to all mankind for the 
same purpose. On this point, as it will be the subject of 
future remark, we shall not further insist at present. 

It has however been contended, that sacrifice rests on no 
ground of Divine authority, except only so far as it forms 
a provision of the Mosaic law ; and that, viewed even as a 
provision of that law, it has its origin in permission and 
compliance only, not in command. In addition to the 
remarks we have already offered for the confutation of this 
opinion, we deem it important to specify further certain 
scriptural facts which arc wholly repugnant to it. With 
this view we refer in the first place to an instance of its 

» Lcvit. xvii. 11. 



Supplementary Rernarks, 443 

observance on the part of a man who " was perfect and 
" upright^ who feared God, and eschewed evil,'^ and who, 
most undeniably, was not in any way a subject of that 
law. " And his sons went and feasted in their houses, 
" every one his day ; and sent and called for their three 
" sisters to eat and to drink with them. And it was so, 
^' when the days of their feasting were gone about, that 
" Job sent and sancti&ed them, and rose up early in the 
" morning, and offered burnt offerings according to the 
" number of them all : for Job said, It may be that my 
" sons have sinned, and cursed God in their hearts. Thus 
" did Job continually ^.'' Here we may be told, that the 
existence of the rite proves nothing further than permis- 
sion, and that the acceptableness of it evinces only God's 
condescension to the weakness of his creatures. What can 
be said then, when in the same book an instance presents 
itself, in which the observance of sacrifice is prescribed by 
God himself; and in which the injunction is addressed to 
those who were not, any more than Job himself, subjects 
to the ritual of Moses ? " And it was so, that after the 
" Lord had spoken these words unto Job, the Lord said to 
" Eliphaz the Temanite, My wrath is kindled against thee, 
" and against thy two friends : for ye have not spoken of 
" me the thing that is right, as my servant Job hath. 
'^ Therefore take unto you now seven bullocks and seven 
" rams, and go to my servant Job, and offer up for your- 
" selves a burnt offering ; and my servant Job shall pray 
" for you : for him will I accept : lest I deal with you after 
" your folly, in that ye have not spoken of me the thing 
" which is right, like my servant Job ^." 

223. 22. 

Such then are the essential characters of the Levitical 
sacrifice. The guilt of the worshipper is emblematically 
imputed to the victim : to the victim also is emblematically 
transferred the punishment which had been incurred: hence 
there results that atonement, which, by virtue of the Divine 
appointment, renders the sinner capable of pardon.~\ The 
general principles thus applied to the interpretation of the 
Levitical sacrifices, having been encountered by a variety 
of objections, we deem it important to notice the most 
considerable of them. 

L It is alleged that the notion of atonement, as it is de- 

' Jobi.4, 5. « Jobxlii. 7,8. 



444 Supplementary Remarks. 

scribed above, does not convey the proper idea of it, as 
conveyed generally in Scripture, and more especially in 
the Mosaic law : since atonements are therein spoken of as 
being effected by means very different from sacrifice. Thus 
we meet with atonements which are made by the payment 
of moneys, by the burning of incense y, and by a signal act 
of zeal for the honour of God ^. Now as these various 
means are all spoken of as effectual towards the atonement 
for sin, it is contended, that the strict and proper signifi- 
cation of the term cannot be that which has been affixed to 
it in relation to sacrifice. 

But this objection can have no force, when it is con- 
sidered, that the restriction of the term atonement, as a 
scriptural term, to the single instance of sacrifice, is not 
contended for. The term itself being properly employed 
to denote the procurement of pardon ; or, according to the 
strict acceptation of the Hebrew word which it represents, 
the covering of sin ^ : it may justly be applied to other 
means and ordinances to which, by the Divine will, the 
power of obtaining pardon may have been annexed. That 
is to ' say : We contend not that the virtue of atonement, 
agreeably to the proper and primitive meaning of the 
word, does not belong to other things as means of instru- 
mental and conditional efficacy for propitiating the Deity : 
but that it does essentially belong to the ordinance of sa- 
crifice. And further, with regard to the sacrificial, as dis- 
tinguished from other atonements, we contend, that its 
specific nature consists in being effected by the emblema- 
tical transfer of guilt and punishment from the transgressor 
to the victim : a species of atonement being thus consti- 
tuted, which must in its own nature be essentially confined 
to the sacrificial ordinance. 

II. A second objection is grounded on those cases, in 
which, though they involve no degree of moral delinquency 
or transgression, it is nevertheless required by the Law that 
a sacrificial atonement should be made. Such for instance 
are the cases of leprosy and child-bearing. How, it may 
be said, could the imputation of sin be transferred where 
no sin existed ; and how could punishment be transferred, 
where none was equitably due ? To which we reply, that 
the ceremony thus prescribed conveyed an information, 
that sin did exist, and that punishment was equitably 



Kxod. XXX, 12—16. y Num. xvi. 16, 47. 

Num. XXV. 7, 8, V6. " Magce on Atonement, vol. i. p. 300. 



Supplementary Remarks. 445 

due : an information which might be highly needful to the 
individuals concerned, but which they probably would not 
have obtained, had they not, by the law which enjoined 
this ceremonial, been instructed in the fact, and required to 
humble themselves before God in a penitent confession of 
it. This, I conceive, is the inference we are bound to 
draw from considering the scriptural character of sacrifi- 
cial atonements, as it relates to the above cases : instead of 
inferring with the objector, that such character has not 
been correctly represented, because the cases now alleged 
do not appear to him to square with the representation. 
We will here avail ourselves of the considerations sug- 
gested, in reference to this subject, by archbishop Magee : 
which we shall state, however, with some little deviation 
from his own words. " Let it be considered, that the 
" pains of child-bearing, and all diseases of the human 
" body, (of which leprosy in the eastern countries was 
" deemed the most grievous,) being the signal consequences 
" of that apostasy, which had entailed these calamities on 
" the children of Adam, it would be proper, on occasion of 
" a deliverance from these remarkable effects of sin, that 
" there should be this sensible representation of that death, 
" which was the desert of it in general, and an humble 
" acknowledgment of that personal demerit, which had 
" actually exposed the offerer on so many occasions to the 
" severest punishment ^." We may add, in illustration of 
the salutary tendency of such appointments, that the per- 
sons of whom their observance was required, were thereby 
guarded from supposing, that sufferings and calamities 
could ever, by the appointment of a wise and merciful 
Creator, be the portion allotted to them in the character of 
innocent and unoffending beings: and consequently guarded 
at the same time from arrogating to themselves a merito- 
rious character in the eye of their God. The bloody cere- 
monial of sacrifice taught and reminded them, in the most 
awful manner, that the wages of sin is death : and while 
this lesson was impressed on their minds, they would be 
so far from contemplating, as the portion of innocence, 
the pains and diseases from which they were liberated, 
that they would be made acquainted, that their punishment 
had been far less than their iniquities had deserved ^. 



'' On Atonement, vol. i. p. 337. 

•^ If, indeed, the opinions of the ancient Israelites might be gathered from 
those of their modern descendants, we might say, that the view which is here 



446 Supplementary Remarks, 

The case, indeed, of deliverance after childbirth, seems 
to call for more particular remark. I would ask then : 
Could it be matter of wonder to any Israelite that this 
should be a fit occasion for sacrificial expiation, when the 
sacred record in which the laws of his nation were em- 
bodied, informed him of that specific malediction, which 
had been pronounced on the first woman by reason of a 
transgression, which had justly incurred the rigid penalty 
of immediate death ? In sorrow shalt thou bring forth chil- 
dren. 

On the whole then we maintain, that these and all other 
cases of sacrifice are to be interpreted according to that 
fundamental and scriptural principle : " It is the blood 
" that maketh atonement for the soul." We main- 
tain also that in these, as in other cases, it is sin, and no 
other cause, which renders the atonement necessary. Nor 
do we feel it necessary to recede from the maintenance of 
these principles, even if sacrificial cases should be alleged, 
to which we cannot readily discover the propriety of their 
application. For it will appear on examining the Mosaic 
ritual, that the expiation of sacrifice was prescribed in a 
variety of instances, riot because such instances involved in 
themselves any ivilful transgression of a Divine Law^ but 
because they furnished occasions on which the Divine wis- 
dom judged it proper that a remembrance of sin should be 
made, together with a confession of guilt, and an acknoiv- 



taken of these sacrificial cases is precisely the same with that of the people to 
whom the Law was given ; and might therefore reasonably contend, that it is 
that which would most naturally and obviously occur from considering the 
provisions and principles of the Law itself. The general doctrine of the 
rabbins in regard to all temporal sufferings is thus laid down by Mairaonides : 
*< Non est mors sine pcccato, neqne castigatio sine iniquitate." M. N. P. iii. 
c. 24. p. 406. That all cases of legal defilement, even those which were in- 
voluntary, such as leprosy and childbearing, uniformly implied an idea of 
guilt, is stated by Magee (Diss, 33. vol. i. p. 245.) to be the opinion of every 
Jewish writer of eminence. In illustration of this opinion he adduces the 
following citations. Abarbanel says, that " Avithout committing sin no one 
" is ever exposed to suffering ; that it is a principle with the Jewish doctors, 
" that there is no pain without crime, and that therefore the woman who had 
" endured the pains of childbirth, was required to offer a piacular sacrifice." 
Tlic same rabbinical writer is cited as saying : " t^ic leper must consider his 
" malady as a judicial infliction for some transgression." And the doctrine 
of the rabbi Hechai on the subject of the sacrifice prescribed to the pucrpcra 
is stated as follows : " that the woman after childbirth is bound to bring a 
" sin-ofTering, in expiation of that original taint, derived from the common 
*' mother of mankind, by whose transgression it was caused, that the pro- 
*' creation of the specie? was not like the production of the fruits of the earth, 
** spontaneous and unmixed with sensual feelings." See Outram de Sacr. 
1. i. c. xii. §. 6, 7. 



Supplementary Remarks. 447 

ledgment of the penalty which had been incurred by it. 
Our remarks on the cases of the puerpera and the leper 
may suffice to shew, that these might properly be viewed 
as presenting occasions such as we now describe. Other 
instances may be advanced, in which the same occasional 
propriety would exist, though it may now be undiscover- 
able to us. For it is to be considered, that the provisions 
of the Mosaic Law were framed with a view to temporary 
and changing circumstances ; and that the circumstances 
to which they were primarily adapted are, in great part, 
blotted out of the memory of mankind^. Thus the rea- 
sons of the Mosaical Law might be, in many instances, suf- 
ficiently understood at the time of its promulgation, and 
yet those reasons will, in the same instances, be wholly 
unintelligible to us. 

The case of the Nazarite polluted with the dead^, may 
be viewed as a proper subject for the application of the 
remarks we have just made. It is one of the cases em- 
braced in the objection which we are now considering: 
nor is it capable of so ready an explanation as that which 
occurs in relation to the two cases of childbirth and le- 
prosy. We might therefore content ourselves with sim- 
ply regarding this, as one of those occasions on which a 
sacrificial remembrance of sin was proper ; though we may 
be unacquainted with those particulars, in the circum- 
stances and usages of the ancient world, which constituted 
the grounds of its being so regarded. 

Still, however, even in this case, it may not be altoge- 
ther impossible to suggest a consideration partly available 
towards the solution of the difficulty. With this view, we 
will quote a remark contained in Dr. Spencer's work on 
the Ritual Laws of the Hebrews. The purpose of the 
writer being to shew, that the Law of Moses was in va- 
rious instances framed on a design of contravening the 
doctrines and practices of the idolatrous w^orship prevalent 
at the time of its promulgation, he observes : '' It is not 

^ " Omnia [Legis] praecepta, tarn negativa quam afl&rmativa, quorum no- 
" bis ratio est occulta, nihil aliud sunt quam Remedia et Medicinse morbo- 
'* rum quorundam illius temporis [quo Lex data est] , qui ad nostram scien- 
" tiara (Deo sit laus) non pervenerunt." Maimonidis More Nev. p. iii. c. 49. 
" Sic itaque omnia reliqua, quorum rationem ignoras, suas tamen validas 
*' habeat causas et rationes, adeoque sequuntur fundamentum illud, de quo 
" nos Sapientes nostri monuerunt; Nihil est inter vos frustra: quod si 
" autem frustra est aliquid, (h. e. vobis ita esse videtur,) id ex vobis est, 
" (h. e. ex vestra imperfectione et ignorantia.)" Id. ibid. c. 50. 

* Num. vi. 



"^^B Supplementary Remarks, 

" improbable that God may have provided that the un- 
'* cleanness derived from the dead might frequently occur, 
" continue long, and not be obviated without labour and 
" trouble, in order that he might exterminate the prevalent 
" superstitioJi of the heathen in regard to the dead. For 
" with them it was usual to venerate the dead with divine 
^^ worship, to partake of their sacred rites, to pass whole 
^' nights in their sepulchres, to expect their oracular re- 
" spouses in cases of difficulty, and to rank them among 
*^ the gods. Now by the Law it was required, that even 
*^ the touch of the dead, of a bone or a tomb, nay, the 
" mere presence of a corpse, should affect all persons and 
" things with so great a defilement, that it could not be 
'' removed, except by repeated washings, by sprinkling the 
^^ water of purification, and by an abstinence of seven days 
" from the sacred services of religion. Hence the Israel- 
'^ ites would necessarily learn to discard the doctrines of 
" the Gentiles respecting the sanctity and divinity of their 
'^ deceased heroes, and their superstitious practices and 
" feelings in regard to the dead would be wholly eradi- 
" catedf. " 

The above may be considered as not an improbable rea- 
son, why, in the case of an ordinary Israelite, the Law 
should impute so great a defilement to a person who had 
touched a dead body. Why then should it be thought ex- 
traordinary, that, in the case of a Nazarite, w^iose profes- 
sion required a much higher degree of sanctity, a sacrifi- 
cial atonement should be required as the means of rein- 
stating him in his former condition of ceremonial purity ? 

This view of the subject will appear the more consistent 
and probable, if we suppose with Tostatus, as quoted by 
Spencers, that the sacrificial atonement required of the 
Nazarite, and the lesser lustration prescribed for the ordi- 
nary Israelite, on the same common occasion of pollution 
by the dead, had the same primary design and meaning : 
that is to say, that the expiation of sacrifice was in both 
cases alike required for the removal of the defilement, but 
that the greater and fuller expiation was called for in the 
case of the Nazarite as a more signal instance of pollution, 
while in the less considerable instances it was allowed that 
the defilement should be cleansed by sprinkhng the water 
of separation which was mixed with the ashes of the burnt 
heifer : the only difference between the two cases being, 

<■ Spencer de Lcgg. pp. 20.5, 20(i. ^ Do Logg. lib. ii. r. 26. §. 5. p. .502. 



Siip2)leme7itary Remarks. 449 

that on the more solemn occasion a victim was specially 
slain with reference to that particular c^se, but that on 
the more ordinary occasion one general victim was allowed 
to avail for the purpose of expiation to the whole congre- 
gation, whenever proper cases for its application might 
arise : the requisition of the Law being thus framed, in or- 
der to mitigate the burdensome and expensive nature of 
those numerous sacrifices, which would otherwise have 
been required by the frequent occurrence of accidental pol- 
lutions. The exposition thus proposed will justly be en- 
titled- to considerable respect, when we consider that the 
apostle to the Hebrews ^ has mentioned the ashes of the 
heifer sprinkling the unclean , as having, in common with 
the blood of bulls and of goats, a reference and an analogy 
to the precious sacrifice of the blood of Christ. 

The foregoing remarks may serve to simplify the sub- 
ject by shewing, that the two cases of defilement to which 
they relate may not improperly be viewed as having been 
placed in the ritual of the Israelites on the same footing, 
and may thus obviate any difficulty which might arise from 
viewing the different prescriptions of that ritual in relation 
to them. Regarding them, then, in commouj as cases in 
which a sacrificial expiation was alike prescribed by the 
Law, we may thus apply to them those leading principles 
for which we contend in relation to the general interpre- 
tation of sacrifice. The accidental touch or presence of a 
corpse was not in itself an unfit occasion of awakening a 
remembrance, that death had been the penalty incurred by 
man's transgression : and the selection of such an incident 
as a suitable occasion for the sacrificial solemnity would at 
the same time be strikingly counteractive of those super- 
stitions respecting the dead, which, according to the opi- 
nion of the learned writer whom we quoted above, this 
part of the ritual law was especially designed to suppress. 

But be this as it may, whatever difficulty belong to the 
case considered in itself, it is no difficulty which affects 
our general position that the sacrificial atonement was al- 
ways required for sin, and in no case without it : for the 
text which prescribes this atonement plainly declares the 
reason of its necessity to be sin, " The priest — shall make 
" an atonement for him, /o?' that he sinned by the dead'." 
The difficulty then belonging to the case is, not that an 
atonement for sin should be required where no sin is im- 

^ Chap. ix. 13, 14. ' Num. vi. 11. 



450 Supplementary Remarks. 

piited, for we plainly perceive that sin ivas imputed ; but 
that sin should l>e imputed in a case where we do not rea- 
dily discover wherein it consisted. 

With this latter difficulty we are, while vindicating the 
doctrine of sacrifice, in no degree concerned. If it be ad- 
mitted, in relation to a case where the Law required a sa- 
crificial expiation, that it was also a case in which the same 
Law imputed sin : this must surely suffice to warrant the 
application to such case of those principles which have 
been maintained in relation to sacrifice in general. But 
with regard to the difficulty thus arising, it may not be 
amiss to propose the following brief considerations. That 
sin should be imputed in cases distinct from those of wil- 
ful transgression, may naturally be explained by a regard 
to the genius of the Levitical law ; in which moral delin- 
quency and ceremonial defilement are included in one com- 
mon character of unfitness for the sacred service of reli- 
gion. Nor can such a system be viewed as in any degree 
repugnant to the divine attributes of justice and mercy : 
since the imputation of sin was attached to the act, only 
till such time as the stain w^as effaced by the prescribed 
expiation ; it was in all cases occasioned by occurrences, 
which could not have happened to the party concerned but 
for the introduction and prevalence of sin in the world, 
and his own participation of it ; and lastly, the subjects to 
whom it was imputed were those who, not merely at the 
time of the occurrence, but during their whole lives, were, 
by reason of personal and actual sin, the just subjects of 
divine condemnation. 

IJL A third objection is grounded on those cases in 
which sacrificial atonements are required for inanimate 
things. Thus we read of atonements for the altar ^', for 
the holy sanctuary^, and for the tabernacle"^. In these 
instances it is plain, that the subjects for which atonement 
is declared to be necessary, are alike incapable of sin and 
punishment : it is therefore maintained, that an emblema- 
tical transfer of either is a notion which cannot apply to 
such cases, nor by consequence (inasmuch as the sacrifi- 
cial character is confessed by the same in the latter) to 
those other instances in which we contend for its exist- 
ence. 

We answer thus. The principles to which we must 
resort for the explanation of sacrifice, in every instance, 

^ Ex. xxlx. 37. Lev. xvi. 3.}. ' Lev, xvi. .'l.'>. '" Ibid. 



Siqyplementary Remarks. 151 

are those which are afforded in the divine word. " The 
" life of the flesh is in the blood ; and I have given it to 
^* you upon the altar^ to make an atonement for your souls : 
'^ for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the 
" soul"." From this passage more especially, aided b)^ 
the concurrent tenor of the Levitical code, we feel our- 
selves entitled to insist upon the following principles, as 
the leading principles of interpretation in relation to the 
sacrificial ordinance : namely, that the life of the victim is 
substituted in the place of the life which is forfeited to jus- 
tice;' that the atonement thus made is made otl\y for the 
soul ; and that the sin or transgression of a moral agent 
is the only cause which renders such atonement neces- 
sary. 

The above are clear and simple principles, furnished by 
divine authority for the explanation of ordinances which 
were confessedly of divine appointment. As such, we con- 
tend that they ought never to be lost sight of, in the esti- 
mate we may form of any of those ordinances to v/hich 
they relate. We feel ourselves entitled to insist further : 
That if any sacrijicial cases of dubious or difficult inter- 
pretation should occur, we are to fix and determine the 
character of such cases to an agreement with the prin- 
ciples thus laid doivn ; but that such cases are on no ac- 
count to be brought forward in contradiction of pnjiciples 
clearly and expressly furnished by the Divine word and 
authority. That is to say, the principles are to be applied 
to the explanation of the cases ; not the cases alleged in 
denial of the principles. This we have a right to claim, 
on the ground of that indispensable iTile of scripture inter- 
pretation and of all good reasoning, which requires us to 
apply things which are in themselves plain and easy to the 
elucidation of those which are difficult, and not to allege 
obscurities for the contradiction and embarrassment of per- 
spicuous truths. A rule too much despised, indeed, bv 
some theologians : to whom the character of an ancient 
sect of philosophy, as we find it in Cicero, may justly be 
applied ; " Vos, cum perspicuis dubia debeatis illustrare, 
^' dubiis perspicua conamini toUere*^." 

With regard more particularly to the present objection, 
we trust we shall make it appear, that the principles above 
stated have a natural and easy application to each of the 

" Le\'. xvii. 11. ° Cic. de Fin. iv. 

Gg2 



452 Supplementary Remarks, 

cases which it embraces, and to whatever similar cases it 
may be possible to allege. 

For, under the guidance of these fundamental principles 
we say, that sacrifice has in all cases a primary regard to 
perso7is. If at any time it is spoken of as offered for in- 
animate things, to them it has only an iiidirect relation : 
while it has at the same time a direct relation to some of- 
fender, or offenders, for whom atonement is made. The 
atonement is made for, or on account of, the thing, by 
reason of some defilement or desecration which it may 
have contracted from its association with the person : but 
the victim is slain for, or m siibstitiition for, the person, 
and to him only does the vicarious import of the sacrifice 
relate. The atonement being thus made for the person, 
the defilement, of which he had been the cause, is re- 
moved : and the thing, thus purified, becomes reinstated 
in its fitness for sacred and holy purposes. 

In confirmation of the above remarks, we have to ob- 
serve, lastly, that the explanation they propose is, we con- 
ceive, precisely the same with that which the sacred text 
itself supplies iu relation to the cases which furnish the 
matter of the present objection. It is required for instance 
of Aaron, that he shall make an atonement for the holy 
place : and why ? The reason is immediately subjoined in 
these words : " because of the uncleanness of the children 
^' of Israel, and because of their traiisgressions in all their 
'' sinsv,'' He is to do the same for the tabernacle of the 
congregation, " that remaineth among them in the midst 
" of their uticleanness^.'' Again, when he is required to 
make an atonement for the altar, it is said that he shall 
" cleanse it, and hallow it from the imcleamiess of the chil- 
" dren of Israel.'' 

On the ground of those considerations which have now 
been offered, I feel myself compelled by the sacred im- 
portance of religious truth, though with great reluctance, 
and, I trust, with becoming humility, to differ from that 
excellent prelate^, who, by his work on Atonement and 
Sacrifice, has contributed the most vigorous and effectual 
support to the cause of vital Christianity. That distin- 
guished writer is not indeed chargeable with a disposition 
to make unguarded concessions to the adversaries of a 
sound and orthodox faith. Yet I cannot but think that 

V Lov. xvi. If). 'J Ibid. " Lev. xvi. 18, 19. » Abp. Magee. 



Supplementary Uemarks. 453 

something like a dangerous concession appears, when, with 
regard to the cases comprised in this and the foregoing ob- 
jection, he distinguishes such sacrifices from others which 
are "of a nature strictly propitiatory^:" when, in reference 
to the same subject he admits, that " there were sacrifices 
" which were 7iot vicarious, inasmuch as there were some 
" that were 7iot for si?i^:" and when he allows that '' in 
" these cases, inoral character could have no concern^^ and 
that " the purifying rite of atonement was enjoined, to 
" render both things and persons worthy and approved in- 
" struments of the Divine worship x." Here, as we con- 
ceive, the simplicity of the sacrificial system is embarrassed 
with an unnecessary distinction : the language employed 
is irreconcileable with that great and fundamental princi- 
ple which declares, that it is the blood that maketh atone- 
ment FOR THE SOUL : and the same language is equally at 
variance with those declarations of the sacred text, by 
which we are taught, that it was the uncleanness, the sins, 
and the iniquities, of the children of Israel, which created 
the necessity of an atonement for the holy place, the ta- 
bernacle, and the altar. 

IV. It is objected, that the characters we have ascribed 
to sacrifice could not belong to it, because sacrifices are 
not confined to piacular cases, but were also offered in 
others which were eucharistical. On this circumstance Dr. 
Sykes lays the greatest stress, as a proof of error in the 
construction of the rite of laying the hand on the head of 
the victim, when it is interpreted to denote the emblema- 
tical transfer of sin from the offender to the victim 7. In 
answer to this, we must again insist upon the necessity of 
interpreting these eucharistical sacrifices agreeably to the 
principles supplied to us by Scripture, and must again 
protest against the allegation of such sacrifices for the 
purpose of contradicting principles laid down by Divine 
authority. Let these principles be applied to the cases thus 
objected : the only consequence of such application will 
be the following; namely, that the legal worshipper was 

i On Atonement, p. 36, vol. i, " Ibid. p. 336. " Ibid. p. 303. 

y His words are : " Tliis cannot be the meaning of this ceremony, because 
" the same thing was done when confession of sins was not made : for it 
" was not only in piacular cases that this rite was used, but in eucharistical 
" sacrifices where praise and thanksgiving were used, and where translation 
*' of guilt was not thought of." Essay on Sacrifices, p. 26. But when it is 
said, that translation of guilt was not thought of in these cases, what is this 
but begging the question ? We contend, on the contrary, the proper in- 
ference to be, that it was thought of. 

Gg3 



454 Supplementary Remarks. 

not permitted to hold any intercourse, even of praise and 
thanksgiving, with his Maker, which was not accompanied 
by the remembrance and confession of sin; that, while 
acknowledging the Divine bounty, he was reminded of his 
own unworthiness ; and thus taught to acknowledge, that 
the favours he had experienced were conferred upon one 
who had merited that death of which he beheld the repre- 
sentation. Surely in this view of the case there is nothing 
unnatural, nor any thing harsh and unreasonable in the 
mode of deduction by which we arrive at it. 

V. It is again alleged, that a sacrificial atonement is 
spoken of in Scripture as being effected by an oblation of 
inanimate matter; that to this oblation the vicarious im- 
port cannot be ascribed ; nor by consequence to the other 
instances of sacrificial atonement ; since a common charac- 
ter belongs to it and to them. 

Of such oblations there is indeed one instance^ to which 
a piacular virtue is annexed ; but it is an instance of such 
a kind, that the exception which it supplies is auxiliary to 
the establishment of the general rule. In this case, an 
offering of fine flour is expressly prescribed as a substitute 
for, and a representative of, the victim which the poverty 
of the offerer renders him unable to provide. For, with 
regard to the transgression for which expiation is required, 
the Law enjoins in the first instance, that the oblation 
should consist of a lamb or a kid : if the offender were too 
poor to bring a lamb, then a pair of turtle-doves or two 
young pigeons were to be offered in the place of it : " but 
" if," says the sacred code, " he be not able to bring two 
" turtle-doves, or two young pigeons, then he that sinned 
^^ shall bring for his offering the tenth part of an ephah of 
*^ fine flour for a sin offering ; he shall put no oil upon it, 
" neither shall he put any frankincense thereon : for it is a 
" sin offering. Then shall he bring it to the priest, and 
" the priest shall take his handful of it, even a memorial 
'' thereof, and burn it on the altar, according to the offer- 
" ings made by fire unto the Lord : it is a sin offering. 
" And the priest shall make an atonement for him as 
*' touching his sin that he hath sinned in one of these, and 
" it shall be forgiven him=^." Hence it plainly appears, 
that as the primary requisition of the Law was impossible, 
the offerer must in this case, to use the language of Ma- 
gee, have been either " shut out from all legal communion 

' Lev. V. 11. => Lev. V. 11, 12, VS. 



Supplementary Remarks. 455 

^' with his God^ or indulged in this inferior sort of offer- 
" ing.'^ We maj^ add, agreeably to the same excellent 
\mter, that the offering being in part burnt and destroyed 
on the altar, might naturally be viewed as a symbol and 
representation of the destruction due to his own demerits. 
" And to all this it may be added^ that this individual 
'' might be taught to look to the animal sacrifices, offered 
" for all the sins of all the people on the day of atone- 
" ment^ for the full and complete consummation of those 
" less perfect atonements, which alone he had been able 
" to make b." 

The above are all the objections which seem particularly 
to call for attention in a work, in which the subject of sa- 
crifice is treated only as a point of subordinate inquiry. 
As we have however lately had occasion to mention Dr. 
Sykes as an objector to the construction we put on a part 
of the sacrificial ceremony, it may not be uninteresting to 
notice that construction which he has himself attached to 
it. We are to remember that this ceremony and its im- 
port is described, in the solemnity of the day of Expiation, 
thus : " Aaron shall lay both his hands upon the head of 
" the live goat, and confess over him all the iniquities of the 
" children of Israel, and all their transgressions in all their 
" sins, putting them upon the head of the goat^/' This we 
construe to denote an emhlematical transfer of guilt. Dr. 
Sykes, having objected to this construction, (on the ground 
of those eucharistical occasions on which, in common with 
piacular, the ceremony is employed,) afterwards declares his 
own view of the ceremony by describing it as " the formal 
" act by which the offerer transferred his property to the 
" use of the altar ^ !" Is this intended as a contradiction of 
the above cited words of scripture^ or an exposition of 
them ? If the latter, it furnishes a most happy example of 
that system of interpretation by virtue of which every form 
of words may be made to carry any signification which it 
may be convenient to assign to them. 

227. 1. 
Sacrifice, according to the view of Dr. Spencer, was in- 
troduced into the ordinances of the Mosaic Law, only as 
an act of concession to the weakness of the Israelites : 
who, according to the same view, had become, at the time 



^ Magee ou Atonement, Diss, xxxviii. vol. i. p. 340. 
•' Lev. xvi.21. '^ Essay on Sacrifices, p. 31. 

Gg4 



456 Supplementary Remarks. 

when their Law was given, so inveterately addicted to its 
observance in consequence of long association with idola- 
ters, that they would, if the indulgence had been denied 
them as a part of the worship of the true God, have obsti- 
nately maintained it in an adherence to the idolatrous 
worship of false deities. Though we feel it unnecessary, 
after the remarks which have already been offered, to enter 
on a distinct confutation of this extravagant proposition, we 
think it not unimportant to subjoin a specimen of the evi- 
dence which has been offered in its support. It is asserted 
by this learned writer, that no precepts relating to sacrifice 
were delivered by God to the Israelites, until after they 
had offered sacrifice to the Golden Calf, and had thus given 
the most evident proofs of a mind enslaved to the usages 
of the heathen '^ ! To the same effect we find Dr. Sykes 
asserting : " As to the rites and ceremonies relative to 
" burnt offerings and the other sacrifices, they luere not 
"• commanded till after the affair of the golden calf had 
" sheiun^ hcnv prone that people ivas to idolatry, and to the 
" religious practices of Egypt ^ J' To find declarations like 
the above, so boldly advanced in flat contradiction to the 
plain narrative of scripture, may well occasion the utmost 
astonishment. For if we refer to that narrative, we shall 
find that the apostasy of the Golden Calf did not occur 
until after precepts and instructions relating to every con- 
siderable part of the sacrificial ritual had been very co- 
piously delivered. Not to insist upon the ordinance of the 
passover, we find, Ex. xx. 24, 25. a general command given 
with regard to various sacrifices, relating to which more de- 
tailed instructions are given in the following parts of the 
Pentateuch : Ex. xxii. 20. a prohibition of offering sacrifice 
to any other than the true God : Ex. xxiii. 18. a law that 
the biood of sacrifices should not be offered with leavened 
bread : Ex. xxix. the sacrifices prescribed at the consecra- 

" " Qiianqnam loci plurimi de hostiis imniolaudis, legum formam et spe- 
" cicm praesc ferentes, in Pentateucho rcperiantur : vix in lesrnm proprie di- 
" ctanim ccnsnm admitti debent, cum apertiim sit leires illas e populi perti- 
" nacia potius, quam Dei voluntate et intcntioue priniaria profluxisse, Deits 
" enini pracepfn nulla de sanificio tradidit, 71 hi postquam pojndus vitulum 
*' sacrifi<;io colnu-seff et animi ritibus efhnieis addicli dovuynenta dedisset 
♦* apertissima. Adeo ut l^eiis non sponto, scd veluti roactus, victimas insti- 
*< tuisse, et sacrificandi Icercs Hebraeornm pcnti siinul et Nccessitati dedisse 
" piitctiir. Lepres antoni non tani data; qnani cxtorta-, sunt populi potius 
" act;i (piam priiicipis, et inter permissa maeis (piani pra;repta numcrandae." 
De Len^p. j). 744. The «ame assertion is many times repeated in the course of 
Dr. Spencer's ponderous work. 

' Essay on Sacrifices, p. 252. 



Supplementary Remarks. 457 

tion of the priests^ and the law relating to the conthmal 
burnt offering of the Lamb, daily morning and evening ; 
lastly, Ex. xxx. 10. we find an ordinance relating to the 
sin offering of the great day of expiation. All these are 
anterior in order of time to that idolatrous defection re- 
corded Ex. xxxii. which is contended by Spencer, Sykes, 
and other theologians, to have furnished the sole occasion 
and reason of appointing the ordinance of sacrifice as a part 
of the Mosaic Law. The subject will be further illustrated 
by a reference to Ex. iii. 18. v. 3. viii. 25 — 32. x. 24 — 26. 

228. 13. 

Such an injunction at any earlier period ivould have 
been nugatory, since this is the date of the first permission 
of animal foodi] This position having been questioned, 
we feel it incumbent upon us, by reason of its importance 
as a medium of proof in relation to the general doctrine 
maintained in the chapter upon sacrifice, to notice the ob- 
jections which have been advanced against it. 

In adverting to this subject, we cannot but lament that 
stubborn and captious pertinacity of opposition, with which, 
in relation to the doctrine of sacrifice as viewed in con- 
nexion with the doctrine of atonement, the legitimate pro- 
gress of argument has been impeded. There is no theo- 
logical question to which this complaint is more applicable. 
However smooth and direct, under the guidance of scrip- 
tural Hght, the path of investigation may be, yet it is a 
path in which not the slightest advances are to be made, 
without the continual necessity of clearing away those ob- 
structions, which have been created, not by the difficulty of 
the subject, but by the ingenuity of controversial resistance. 
The clearest positions of human knowledge, though other- 
wise allowed with unhesitating consent, are found highly 
problematical and dubious when applied to this question : 
in like manner, facts, which heretofore were universally 
acknowledged, are for the first time denied ; and terms, of 
which the meaning was universally agreed upon, are for 
the first time found to have been misunderstood ; when in- 
sisted upon with a view to the same application. Of the 
justice of this charge an estimate may be formed from con- 
sidering the following objection. 

It is observed by Curcellaeus s, " that he does not re- 
'* "member to have read a single theologian, ancient or mo- 

s Diatriba de Esu Sanguinis, c. 1. 



458 Supplementary Remarks, 

" dern, Jew or Christian^ who thought that animals either 
" were, or lawfully might be, slain for food before the fall 
" of Adam." Wliat however was unknown till the time of 
this -s^Titer, was no longer so in the following century : 
since Dr. Sjd^es has undertaken to prove, that both the law- 
fulness and the reality of the practice are to be dated from 
the creation of man. In order to the developement of his 
argument, it will be right in the first place to introduce 
the two following quotations from Scripture. 

" And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb 
" bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, 
" and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yield- 
" ing seed ; to you it shall be for meat. And to every 
" beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to 
^' every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there 
" is life, I have given every green herb for meat : and it 
" was so." Gen. i. 29, 30. 

" And the fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon 
'* every beast of the earth, and upon every fowl of the air, 
" upon all that moveth upon the earth, and upon all the 
" fishes of the sea ; into your hand are they delivered. 
'^ Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you; 
" even as the green herh have I given you all t/wigs.'' 
Gen. ix. 2, 3. 

The first of these citations is commonly adduced as a 
proof, that animal food was not granted to Adam. Dr. 
Sykes however contends that it was permitted because it is 
not forbidden. " It was not," observes he," that this or 
" that food was prohibited, or not to be eaten by man ; but 
" to declare how well God had, in his infinite wisdom, pro- 
" vided for the numerous species of creatures which he had 
" created h." The argument to the contrary being how- 
ever much strengthened by the second of the above cita- 
tions, (for otherwise the more extended grant which it con- 
tains would look only like a nugatory concession of that 
which had been lawfully enjoyed before) : his reply to it is 
framed in the following manner. First, it is contended 
that the term which is rendered " every moving thing," 



1' Essay on Sacrifices, p. 171. The value of this exposition is well illus- 
trated by Delany in the following manner, ** If a prince gave any man a 
*' grant of certain lands named in liis patent, and mentioned in his grant, 
" that this sliould be the estate: would any man iu his senses believe, that 
" lie had a light to ani/ other estate, by virtue of that grant? or that he was 
•* not limited to the lands there expressly mentioned?" &c. Rev. exam, 
with Candour, vol. ii. Diss. i. p. 30. 



Supplementary Mernarks. 459 

does not in the Hebrew signify every kind of animal, but 
only a class of them distinct from beast and fowls, namely, 
those which glide along without feet : that the meaning of 
this grant to Noah may therefore be quite consistent with 
men's having eaten sheep and bullocks from the begin- 
ning ', and that the extension of the grant comprises only 
such animals as are not comprised under the terms. Beasts 
and Fowls i. On this reasoning we have to observe, after 
Magee, first, that the proposed exposition of the second of 
the above-cited passages, directly contradicts that which 
had been given of the former. " For if the grant to 
'' Adam was but a general declaration of abundant provi- 
'^ sion, and consequently leaving man at full liberty to use 
" all creatures for food, why introduce a permission at this 
" time respecting a particular species of creature ^ ?'' Se- 
condly, we must refer to the most irrefragable evidence 
adduced by the same learned writer ^ to establish the cor- 
rectness of the present version, and to prove most satisfac- 
torily, that the term, of which the import is thus disputed, 
properly denotes not " a particular species of animals, but 
" all, of whatever kind, that move.'' It would be extend- 
ing this note to an immoderate length, though otherwise 
an employment by no means devoid of interest and utility, 
if we were to enter into a detail of the proofs of our po- 
sition respecting the first grant of animal food, and to com- 
bine with that detail an examination of the objections which 
have been raised against it. It will not however be unim- 
portant to remark, that there are few propositions relating 
to the sacred history of the scriptures, which have been 
sanctioned by a more general agreement of all ancient 
writers both Jewish and Christian, than this ^ : which 
seems indeed, till of late years, to have passed current as 
one of the most undisputed facts with which the sacred 
records present us. We may add, that a circumstance 
highly corroborative of the same truth, occurs in the tra- 
dition which is found to have prevailed very extensively in 
the ancient world, that the earliest race of mankind de- 
rived their subsistence wholly from the vegetable supplies 
of the earth. The subject with which we are now engaged 
has been largely discussed in the first three chapters of 
Curcellaeus's Diatri^a de Esu Sanguinis : to which the 

' Essay on Sacr, pp. 171. et seqq. 

^ Ou Atonement, vol. ii. p. 123. ' Ibid. vol. ii. Diss. liii. 

"' Magee on Atonement, vol. ii. p. 130. See also Curcellaei Diatriba dc 
Esn Sanguinis, C. 2. 



460 Supplementary Remarks, 

reader, who wishes for further information respecting it, is 
referred. It may also be observed, that Plutarch has left 
us two short treatises " On the eating of Flesh"," which 
may be read with considerable interest on this subject, and 
will be found perhaps, as they illustrate the design of na- 
ture in the physical constitution of man, to throw some 
degree of light upon it. There is one argument advanced 
by this writer which seems so just, and which at the same 
time is commonly so little noticed in the discussion of this 
question, that I cannot forbear mentioning it. The purpose 
of the author being to prove, that man was not formed by 
nature with a view to his subsistence on the flesh of ani- 
mals, he contends, that nature has left him wholly unpro- 
vided with the means of supplying himself with that kind 
of food. That is to say: Other carnivorous animals are 
furnished in the organical construction of their bodies with 
the means of obtaining their sustenance ; but in the case 
of men, the means of slaying the animals they eat, of do- 
mesticating the tame, and of catching the wild, are almost 
wholly artificial, and could not have been employed till the 
arts of life had made considerable advancement. It must 
therefore follow, on the supposition that he had been formed 
with a view to that kind of food, that he must have been 
destitute of the means of obtaining it, until he had made 
such progress in civilization as to be in possession of those 
artificial means, of which the employment is found neces- 
sary for that purpose. The same author observes, that 
animal food is never used by man in its natural state, but 
always disguised by the operation of fire : which he alleges 
as a proof that nature has implanted in our species an 
aversion to it. 

228. 27. 

The p7'ohibifion itself is grounded on the expiatory de- 
sign of sacrifice : but the date of the prohibition is occa- 
sioned by the simultaneous grant of animal food.~\ Two 
reasons diff*erent from that here specified have, however, 
been assigned, for the prohibition of blood to Noah and 
his descendants. These it will be incumbent on us to 
notice. 

I. It is contended, that the grant of food to Noah was 
not a grant of animal food ; for that had been lawfully 
eaten before ; but that it is ordy the recognition of a right 
previously enjoyed, and that the design of it, viewed in con- 

" n«^< ffuiJKoipayias. 



Supplementary Remarks. 461 

nexion with the prohibition which follows the grant, is, to 
convey, together with the confirmation of a previous grant, 
a command, that no flesh should be eaten but that of ani- 
mals which had been previously slain. In other words 
its purport, according to this view of the subject, was, to 
prohibit the eating of flesh which was taken from any 
animal alive, and also of any animals which die of them- 
selves^. 

Now with regard to the practice of eating the flesh cut 
from a living animal, we discover in it such a repugnance 
to the natural and common feelings of mankind, that we 
are at a loss to conceive how the prospect of its occurrence 
can have supplied the reason of a law enacted on so solemn 
an occasion. In the scriptural account of those very few 
commandments which were delivered to Noah and his 
sons, we find that many crimes more atrocious, more cruel, 
and, at the same time, more congenial to the depravity of 
our nature, are wholly unnoticed. We find from history 
and observation, that such more enormous crimes have be- 
come extremely prevalent among mankind : while the 
practice we are now considering has prevailed so little, that 
its mere existence is little better than dubious. The whole 
compass of scripture, though otherwise copious in de- 
scribing the abominations of the heathen, furnishes not a 
single example of it. In the records of the ancient world, 
we find it attested only by very uncertain and question- 
able accounts P. Its reality, as a monstrous singularity in 
the human character, is barely evinced by the testimony of 
modern travellers. It has indeed been contended, (on the 
authority of the rabbins, I believe,) that this practice 
formed a part of the wickedness of the antediluvian gene- 
rations, and that the suppression of it was the object con- 
templated in this interdiction : a view of the subject which 
it will be time enough to controvert, when we have seen 
the evidence by which it is supported, since it is plain 
that such evidence neither has been, nor can be, adduced. 
Lastly we must insist with Curcellseus M, (to whom we are 
partly indebted for the foregoing remarks,) on the utter 



° Sykes's Essay on Sacrifices, p. 176, 177. 

p Thus Maimonides (on the authority of the books which have been al- 
ready described) mentions it as forming a part of the Zabian superstition. 
More Nev. P. iii. c. 48. p.496. Diodorus Sicnlus also speaks of a tribe of 
Ethiopians, who fed on the flesh of the elephant while the animal was alive, 
iii. 25. 

1 De Esu Sang. 0pp. p. 951. 



4(y2 Supplementary Remarks. 

improbability, tlmt a law, interdictive of a certain crime, 
should be framed in such language that it would be im- 
possible for any man, without a considerable stretch of sa- 
gacity, to guess that the crime which it forbids might pos- 
sibly be denoted by the terms which it employs. 

As to the eating of any animal which dies of itself, that 
this is not the act proscribed in the present interdiction, 
will appear from hence : that such act was an offence only 
in relation to the ceremonial Law of the Israelites, but not 
forbidden, like the act we are now considering, to the sons 
of Noah in general, that is, to the rest of mankind ^ 

II. It is maintained, that the prohibition of eating blood 
was designed to infuse into the minds of men a salutary 
dread of the guilt they would incur by shedding the blood 
of their fellow-creatures. This exposition of its design is 
framed on a view of the words which follow those in which 
it is contained. " But flesh with the life thereof, w^hich is 
'' the blood thereof, shall ye not eat. And surely your 
" blood of your lives will 1 require ; at the hand of every 
" beast will I require it, and at the hand of man ; at the 
" hand of every man's brother wdll I require the life of 
" man. Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his 
" blood be shed : for in the image of God made he man^." 

But it would be w^ell if they, who employ themselves in 
assigning reasons for the Divine laws, would consider, 
whether the explanations proposed by them are worthy of 
the wisdom from which those laws emanate. In relation 
to the present case, it deserves consideration, whether we 
can discover any natural conduciveness in this particular 
provision towards the attainment of the end which is sup- 
posed to have been contemplated in the framing of it. Was 
it ever found, then, by experience, that the eating of blood, 
prevalent as the practice now is in the world, w^ould harden 
the feelings of mankind so as to prepare their minds for the 
atrocity of murder ? Was a case ever known to arise, in 
which the horror of that dreadful crime was in the slightest 
degree aggravated by the consideration, that God had for- 
bidden the eating of blood ? Was that consideration ever 
employed as a topic in depicting the guilt and enormity of 
that crime ? If we will duly consider the matter, I think we 
must acknowledge, that we can discover in the prohibition 

■■ " Yc shall not eat of anything that dieth of itself: thou shalt give it 
♦' tjiito the stranger that is in tliy gates, that he may eat it ; or thou niayest sell 
" it unto an alien." J)eut. 3tiv.2I. 

' (ieu. ix. 4, .'), 6. 



Supplemental^ Remarks. 4G3 

of eating blood no tendency whatever to the end which it is 
thus siipposed to have had in view. If this be admitted, 
we ought, I think, to hesitate before we ascribe to the 
counsels of Divine wisdom a purpose, which it does not ap- 
pear that such counsel w^as, in the nature of things, calcu- 
lated to effect. 

On the other hand, if we consider the occasion on which 
this primitive law against the murderer was enacted, we 
shall, I think, discover a much more rational explanation of 
its being thus found in close connexion with the prohibi- 
tion of eating blood. For though in the practice of eating 
blood we cannot discover any tendency to divest the heart 
of man of its just and proper sentiments of tenderness for 
the life of a fellow creature, yet in the practice of shedding 
blood w^e may discover that tendency. Of this tendency 
an acknowledgment may be found in the generall}^ prevail- 
ing opinion, that persons engaged in that occupation are, 
for that very reason, disqualified by our common law from 
sitting in judgment on the life of a fellow creature ^ Such 
being the case, we cannot but admit that the time of first 
granting to mankind the right of slaying animals for their 
food, was a seasonable occasion for providing some addi- 
tional security for human life ; and that the Divine wis- 
dom may therefore now for the first time have judged it 
right to delegate to man that judicial power over the life 
of the murderer, which, during the w^hole course of the 
antediluvian world, he had reserved in his own hands. 

Let it be considered then, whether the following may 
not justly be regarded as a reasonable and consistent view 
of the matter. We find, in connexion with the first grant 
of animal food to man, two laws enacted by the Divine 
wisdom. The first of these laws forbids the eating of 
blood : the second denounces a sanguinary retribution on 
the murderer. Both these laws, we contend, derive their 
occasion from the grant with which the}' are connected. In 
the first place, blood, being the vehicle of life and the sa- 
cred instrument of making atonement for the soul, is now 
for the first time forbidden to be eaten ; because any pre- 
vious interdiction to that effect would, at a time when 
men did not eat flesh nor slaughter animals for any other 
purpose than sacrifice, have been useless. Secondly, the 

' This is, I believe, nothing more than a vulgar error. The prevalence 
of the opinion, however erroneous, is sufficient for the argument here pur- 
sued. .« 



464 Suppleme7itary Remarks. 

life of man is now fenced with an additional security, in 
order to restrain that ferocity which would naturally be 
engendered by a transition from a state, in which they sub- 
sisted on the fruits of the earth, into a state, in which their 
sustenance would be obtained by the infliction of pain and 
death, and by the shedding of blood. 

We will conclude this note by remarking, that as the 
law which forbids the eating of blood applied to the Gen- 
tile in common with the Israelite ; so also is the reason of 
that law expressly and equally applied in scripture to both. 
For we find (Lev. xvii. 10 — 12.) that the reason given why 
both Israelite and Gentile were equally forbidden to eat 
blood, was, that the life of the flesh was in the blood, and 
it was appointed as the instrument of making atonement 
for the soul". 

286. 2. 

Because ive are not to expect the narrative of Scripture^ 
&c.] As a consideration illustrative of this remark, the 
following may not be wholly undeserving of notice. It is 
undeniable, that the doctrine of a future retribution was 
believed by the historian Josephus ; that it was regarded 
by him as a doctrine of the Law ', and as a doctrine which 
had always from the very earliest times been cherished in 
the belief of his countrymen. Of these points his writings 
afford the most incontestable evidence. Now although a 
copious account of the history of the Israelites is contained 
in his works, it is remarkable, that the passages which in- 
dicate the doctrine in question, are much less numerous 
than passages of the same class in the Scriptures. This, 
as we conceive, is only explained on the principle which 
has been offered in explanation of the alleged silence of 
the Scriptures in relation to the same subject and the same 
period : namely, that the nature of his subject and the 
course of his narrative did not naturally lead to the more 
frequent mention of it. 

In order to evince the truth of the above remark, it will 
be useful to notice certain particulars which occur on a 
comparative view of the Scripture narrative and that of 
the Jewish historian. We find then various passages in 
Scripture which have commonly been regarded as strong 
indications of a future state : but in the corresponding por- 
tions of the history of Josephus, we find that no language 
of similar import is employed. Thus, Gen. ii. 7- vve are 

" See note % page 22"). 



Supplementary Remarks. 465 

told that, at the creation of man, God " breathed into his 
" nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living 
" soul/' This, as it relates a striking difference in the 
creation of man from what had been recorded with regard 
to other animals, is frequently insisted upon as an evi- 
dence that man, in distinction from other inferior crea- 
tures, was created with a view to perpetuity of existence^. 
But no inference of this kind could possibly be drawn 
from any thing which has been said by the Jewish histo- 
rian in relation to the same fact : for he simply records 
that God ^^ infused into man breath and a souly." We 
have ourselves alleged the language of Balaam, when he 
wishes to die the death of the righteous, and also the Mo- 
saical law against necromancy, as passages in which a fu- 
ture state is plainly recognised : but in regard to both 
these particulars the history of Josephus is wholly silent. 
The interview of Saul with the woman of Endor is in- 
deed recorded : and this I believe will be found to be the 
only instance in the progress of his history which affords 
the slightest evidence either of the doctrine itself, or of its 
reception among his countrymen, till he comes to record 
the dream of Glaphyra^: in which passage the apparition 
of Glaphyra's former husband is strongly insisted on by 
him as evidence of the immortality of the soul. Thus 
have we a copious history of the same people whose his- 
tory is recorded in the Scriptures of the Old Testament, 
in which, from the creation of the world down to a few 
years after the commencement of the Christian era, (for 
that is the date of the event relating to Glaphyra,) only 
one incident is recorded which affords the slightest indi- 
cation of a future state : and this history, the production 
of a person who fully believed that doctrine himself, and 
likewise declares it to have been believed, during every pe- 
riod of their existence as a nation, by the people who form 
the subject of his work. 

287. ^4. 
Of Odin, the lawgiver of the Suevi, the same is re- 
corded?^ " After he had finished these glorious achieve- 

^ " Moses earn [sc. animarum immortalitatis doctrinam] c fiindo eruit, 
'' quum aaimam Dei imaginem, vel potius ad Dei iuiagiuem factain, homi- 
" nique secus ac caeteris animantibus insufflatam docuit. Eusebius : o f^iv yi 

" ^cuvtrrii -TT^coTOi ctixvctTov ovffieiv tivai t>)v £v av&PUTui -ipv^'/iv coeitrccTO, nicova, (^r,- 
*' era? V7ra^;)(^itv uutt^v Oiov." Witsii iEgyptiaca, II. XV. 4. 

y Tlvi'jfta ivyjxiv cturv x.ru •^vx.*iv. ^ Ant. Jud. XVII. xiii. 4, 5. 

H h 



466 Supplementary Rema7'ks. 

*' meiits, Odin retired into Sweden; where, perceiving his 
" end to draw near, he would not wait till the conse- 
" qiiences of a lingering disease should put a period to 
" that life which he had so often bravely hazarded in the 
'' field ; but assembling the friends and companions of his 
" fortune, he gave himself nine wounds in the form of a 
" circle with the point of a lance, and many other cuts in 
" his skin with his sword. As he was djang, he declared 
" he ^vas going back into Scythia to take his seat among 
" the other gods at an eternal banquet, where he would 
*' receive with great honours all who should expose them- 
" selves intrepidly in battle, and die bravely with their 
'^ swords in their hands." Mallet's Northern Antiquities, 
pp. GG, G7. 

291. 12. 
/ sai/ then, in the ivords of bishop Bull, &c.] On the 
discourse from which these words are taken, Warburton 
has founded a most unwarrantable charge of inconsistency 
against this learned and venerable prelate. The state of 
the case is as foUoAvs. In a passage which, in a former 
part of this work% we extracted from the Harmonia Apo- 
stolica, the author of that treatise expressly declares that no 
promise of a future state is to he found in the Law of 
Moses. In the sermon here quoted, he argues, " That 
'^ good men, even under the Law, or Old Testament, look- 
" ed beyond this present vain transitory life, and believed 
" and hoped for an everlasting happiness in the hfe to 
" come." Surely no inconsistency can here be discovered ; 
unless with unjustifiable temerity and precipitation of rea- 
soning we infer, with Warburton, that because Moses em- 
ployed not the sanction, therefore the Israelites were neces- 
sarily ignorant of the doctrine. But the memory of that 
great divine will be most effectually cleared of this impu- 
tation, if we subjoin another extract from the same ser- 
mon. After adducing arguments in proof of the proposi- 
tion stated above, he thus proceeds : " By these testimo- 
" nies ajid instances it sufficiently appears, that good men 
" under the Law did not live and die like swine, feeding 
^' only on the husks of these earthly vanities, as some have 
" foolishly imagined. They had undoubtedly a future state 
" in their eye, and lived by the faitli of it, as well as we. 
" This faith was first derived, not from the Law of Moses, 



Supplementary Remarks. 467 

" (for that in the letter of it promised nothing beyond this 
" life,) but from the gracious revelation of God to mankind 
" from the beginning." 

We cannot but lament that the writer of the Divine Le- 
gation should have so far forgotten the respect due to 
learning and virtue, as to have framed his very groundless 
accusation against this distinguished prelate in a manner 
which conveys an impeachment of his moral character. 
" I should not/' says he, " have illustrated this censure 
" by the example of so respectable a person, but for the 
^' indiscretion of my answerers, who, to support their own 
" ill logic, have exposed his morals^.'' 

293. 20. 
On this fact, and on these ivords, it is hardly necessary 
to offer any other comment than that which is supplied by 
Warburton himself] But this comment, however natural, 
was not intended by that great writer to have any such 
applica^tion. The words quoted in the text relate to a 
passage in the Laws of Zaleucus, " where wicked men are 
" bid to set before themselves the dreadful hour of dea*h." 
On this occasion, Warburton justly remarks on the affec- 
tation of those who pretend that they cannot find the doc- 
trine of a future state in these words^. How strange then 
that he cannot himself find that doctrine in the wish of 
Balaam to die the death of the 7'ighteous ! But we shall 
meet with something still more strange when we advert 
to the ground on which the inference, thus insisted on as 
good and valid in the case of Zaleucus, is rejected as good 
for nothing at all in the case of Balaam. Having observed 
that the words of Balaam are " understood as a wish that 
" he might be partaker with the righteous in another life," 
he thus proceeds : " Had the apostate prophet said. Let 
'^ me live the life of the righteous, it would have had a 
" much fairer claim for such a meaning." What a strange 
expression of contempt for an opinion in which he had 
previously expressed his own concurrence, and in relation 
to which he had censured the affectation of those who pre- 
tended that they did not agree with him ! He goes on : 
" As it is, both the force of the words, and their relation 
" to the context, restrain us to this literal meaning, — ' Let 
" me die in a mature old age, after a life of health and 



Div. Leg, Note [A] on book vi. p. 445. vol. v. 

See Div. Leg. b. ii. §. 3. and note [C] at the end of the section, vol. i. 
H h 2 



468 Siipplementmy Remarks, 

" peace, with all my posterity flourishing about me : as 
" was the lot of the righteous observers of the law^^/ " 
The Law ! What Law ? Surely the style of expression will 
not allow us to understand here any other law than that 
which is preeminently so called, namely, the Law of Moses. 
What then had Balaam to do with that Law, with its pe- 
culiar sanctions, or with the lot of its righteous observers, 
when he was in no way bound to the observance of it him- 
self? 

It is true that Warburton contends for the prevalence 
of an equal or extraordinary providence (still confusing 
the ideas of two things of which the one is essentially in- 
consistent with each other : for, as we have shewn, an ex- 
traordinary providence must in its own nature be unequal) 
not only among the chosen seed of Jacob under the Mo- 
saic Law, but also universally among all mankind during 
the earlier ages of the world. But this cannot be alleged 
in vindication of his consistency with regard to the pas- 
sages we have been considering. For on his own view it 
will appear, that this extraordinary providence, if it ever 
existed, was extinct before the time of Balaam, and there- 
fore could not have been in his contemplation when he 
spoke these words. The following extracts from the ninth 
book of his work will prove the truth of the foregoing state- 
ment, and will moreover furnish a full exposition of his 
views respecting the providential government of the world 
in those early ages. 

" At what time soever God's providence hath been dis- 
" pensed equally to the sons of Adam, living under the 
" direction of natural law, they could expect their reward 
" only here. But, whenever they began to observe that 
" God's providence was grown unequal^ and that rewards 
" and punishments were not regularly dispensed here, they 
" would look to have the disorder rectified hereafter^.'' 

" But that distribution of reward and punishment, which 
" God, under every mode of his moral government, makes, 
" with supreme justice, either here in this world, or here- 
" after in another, was, (when the sentence of death was 
** denounced on man's transgression) at first made here in 
" this world, so long as he continued to be favoured with 
" the administration of an e([ual or extraordinary provi- 
" dcnce. Which, as we learn from the mosaic his- 
** TORY," (where?) " continued from the fall down to the 

■' Div. Leg. b. vi. §. 3. p. .lliD. vol. v. «= Ibid. b. ix. c. 1. p. 250. vol. vi. 



Supplementary Remarks, 469 

" time when polytheism universally prevailed. For, when 
" the world, by reason of the vices and corruptions of its 
" inhabitants, did not like to retain God in their know- 
" ledge, but changed the glory of the incorruptible God 
" into an image made like to corruptible man^, that first 
" dispensation of Providence was withdrawn." 

'^ Yet, as soon as God had selected a chosen race, and 
" had separated it from the rest of mankind, to place his 
^' name there, we see with astonishment this equal provi- 
" dence revive in Judea ; for man was still under the curse 
" or doom of death. And this existed till repeated idola- 
" tries, the crime which first caused the equal providence 
" to be withdrawn from the nations at large, did at length 
" deprive the chosen people likewise of their share of this 
" blessings." 

From the foregoing passages it is apparent, that, though 
we were to admit the doctrine of the early and extraordi- 
nary providence which is therein contended for, such a 
state of things could not have been in the contemplation 
of Balaam when he wished to die the death of the right- 
eous ; since it is acknowledged, that such providence, if it 
ever existed, was then extinct. 

As I have been led to the citation of the above passages, 
it would be improper to dismiss them without some fur- 
ther remark, in addition to that for the sake of which they 
were adduced. 

It is her« said, that an equal or extraordinary providence 
continued in the world from the fall down to the time when 
polytheism universally prevailed; or, as we find it other- 
wise expressed, while the world retained the memory of 
the true God^. As the period is not precisely defined, it 
may be requisite for the purpose of argument that its limits 
should be more exactly fixed. If we suppose then that the 
equal providence here spoken of must have ceased before 
the call of Abraham, we shall hardly be accused of any 
injustice to the meaning of the writer. The authority of 
Moses is then alleged, as proof of the existence of this 
equal and extraordinary providence during a period, which 
cannot come down later than the call of Abraham. But 
where do the writings of Moses give the least support to 
such a position ? So far are they indeed from affording it 
the slightest countenance, that, in fact, they furnish the 

^ Rom. i. 23—28. e Div. Leg. b. ix. c. 1. p. 266. vol. vi. 

h See the following page of the Div. Leg. 



470 Supplementary Reinarks. 

most decided evidence to the contrary. For during the 
abovementioned period, there are only three persons of 
eminent piety of whom the scripture has given us any re- 
cord, Abel, Enoch, and Noah : with respect to all of whom 
it is certain that they were not properly speaking the sub- 
jects of such a distribution. The first was taken off by a 
premature death, as the very consequence of his piety : the 
second had his reward, but it was eternal and not tempo- 
ral : the third can have enjoyed no large measure of tem- 
poral fehcity, living as he did at a time when all flesh had 
corrupted its way before God, and when the wide spread 
wickedness of those around him was wholly incompatible 
with that happiness v.^hich man as a social being is framed 
to enjoy. 

307. 1. 
(^) A promise relating to the effect of prayer is con- 
tained 2 Chron. vii. 12, 13, 14. where God appears to So- 
lomon after the dedication of the temple. But even here 
it is remarkable, that the promise is not general. For first, 
it is confined to prayers offered up in one particular place, 
namely, the temple. Secondly, it is confined to those 
prayers in which temporal blessings are the matter of the 
petition. 



THE END. 



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